Lando Norris’ indecision turns Oscar Piastri pandemonium into sour McLaren moment

Away from Oscar Piastri’s impressive on-track performance since his debut last season, one notable aspect has been his off-track demeanour.

While some rookies may, fairly, struggle to deal with the new limelight they have found themselves thrust into, Piastri has always kept a sense of calm, a sense of ‘leave it to me, I know what I’m doing.’

That cool head was tested at Melbourne this year. Piastri at his home race missed out on a podium in order to comply with team orders and give his team-mate P3.

At Silverstone, McLaren botched a pit strategy that cost Piastri any chance of a podium let alone a win and how did the 23-year-old respond? By calmly explaining these things happen and that it was one of the toughest decisions to be made by a strategy team.

So come Hungary and when Oscar Piastri led from Turn 1 due to Lando Norris’ decision to try and cover him off and not protect from Max Verstappen, the Australian may have had in the back of his mind what might be coming his way.

That moment came in lap 46 when McLaren opted to pit P2 Norris over race leader Piastri, a decision they said was to block off Lewis Hamilton from taking Norris’ P2 spot. But what happened over the next 24 laps was enough to make everyone in papaya sweat on the pit wall.

Piastri re-emerged behind his team-mate but was assured that Norris would give the spot back, but as the laps went on and on, it seemed less and less likely that would be the case.

Norris’ engineer Will Joseph’s requests over the team radio progressed from firm to pleading with the engineer suggesting Norris’ refusal to hand over the spot was something that could disrupt the team’s harmony.

He spoke of “every Sunday morning meeting”, suggesting a Championship is won as a team not as individual but all of this fell on deaf ears, so much so that Norris was even asked if his radio was still working.

Racing drivers are inherently selfish, of course they are, and it is hard to see how anyone like Max Verstappen or Lewis Hamilton would have reacted any differently to Norris in that same situation but truthfully, it was a position McLaren should not have put their drivers in.

Yes Hamilton was closing but the MCL38 has been the fastest car all weekend, surely they had the confidence to pit Piastri first, protect his maiden victory, and then pit Norris confident he could hold off or even re-overtake Hamilton.

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The choice to pit Norris first was another example of a flaw that has been exposed in McLaren now that they are fighting at the top end of the grid – their decisions have not been good enough.

That came most notably in Silverstone but Norris has often been speaking about the small details the team need to fix to be serious title contenders.

In the end, Norris relented. Allowing Piastri past to secure McLaren’s first one-two for three years and the first one on merit since 2010.

Piastri’s first win, something many thought was a matter of when not if, should have been a moment of celebration for the team but now there is an air of confrontation. How does this dynamic play out in the future? Does Piastri continue to be a diligent team-mate? Will Norris do this again if put in a similar position?

These are all questions that will be answered but at a time when McLaren should be on cloud nine, instead there are storm clouds brewing above them.

Read next: Hungarian GP: Oscar Piastri overcomes controversial McLaren strategy to claim maiden Grand Prix victory