The Woking-based team celebrates its 200th victory with Lando Norris finishing ahead of Oscar Piastri, who delivered a strong but ultimately futile comeback. The papaya team initially feared the Ferrari of Charles Leclerc but then took firm control of the race to secure a fourth consecutive one-two finish. Oscar Piastri is left bitter over the forced strategic choices.
McLaren’s 200th victory at the Hungarian Grand Prix allows the team to enjoy a summer break filled with relaxation. It is a magical moment for Andrea Stella’s squad; the progress confirmed on track by the developments of the MCL39 coincided with the failures of Red Bull’s upgrades and a step back by Mercedes. Ferrari appeared behind them, but the alternating role of ‘best of the rest’ has further widened the gap available to the papaya team.
Another sign that McLaren has returned to being a top team is the post-race questions. Discussions revolve around the drivers and the strategies that influenced their finishing positions, and this will continue until the end of the season. When the stakes are highest (with the certainty that the main battle is, and will remain, an internal rivalry), the atmosphere grows increasingly electric race after race. At the end of the Hungarian weekend, it was Oscar Piastri who felt the bitterness. He masked it well, but the disappointment at the race outcome was clear; he knew he had everything to claim the Grand Prix, but the verdict was different.
However, McLaren has little to blame itself for. Both drivers have now switched to championship mode, meaning their only interest is finishing ahead of their teammate, but the objectives at the pit wall are different: winning Grand Prix races. In Hungary, the papaya team’s race management faced the variable of Charles Leclerc, who capitalized on pole position to take a lead that appeared very solid at least during the first stint. In the early phases of the race, everything seemed to go against Lando Norris, who slipped to fifth by the end of the first lap, but precisely the gap from the leading pair was the key that led him to victory.
McLaren found itself playing a one-pronged battle against Leclerc: Oscar Piastri attempted an undercut on lap 18 but was immediately covered by Ferrari’s pit wall. “It wasn’t clear what the power of the undercut would be,” Andrea Stella explained, “but it was worth trying. We wanted to make a first attempt to pass Leclerc, but we also knew there would be a second attempt later in the race. At that moment, Lando was definitely out of any possibility.”
At that point, the strategists suggested Norris consider a one-stop race, an opportunity that Lando eagerly seized as it was his only chance to overtake Piastri. After Piastri’s stop on lap 18, he gained 9.4 seconds on Norris, then it was time for Lando’s only tire change. Returning to the track, Norris recovered 8.7 seconds on his teammate, and after Piastri’s last pit stop, he found himself on track 12 seconds ahead of Norris, with fresh tires and Charles Leclerc to overtake without losing too much time.
“In the end, the two strategies proved quite equivalent,” Stella confirmed, and indeed, in the last three laps, Piastri managed to catch Norris. The difference was the track position; in the first stint, Oscar had been the hare, while in the last, he had to become the hunter — a role reversal he did not appreciate, especially since it allowed his teammate to run many more laps in clean air. The desperate attempt seen two laps from the end at the braking zone of turn 1 was a move born of frustration, which fortunately for the team did not compromise the race result.
In Piastri, a growing fear emerges that he has left victories behind on weekends where overall he had proven faster than Norris. This happened at Silverstone with the controversial error (and related penalty) under the safety car and occurred again this weekend with the pit wall’s strategic decisions.
Piastri heads into the summer break with a nine-point lead over Norris and the certainty that he generally has something more in terms of performance compared to his teammate. But as the first half of the season teaches, it’s not just about lap times; it’s about converting all of that into the only thing that ultimately counts, especially when racing for the best team in the championship: the overall standings.
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