Oscar Piastri won his first Formula 1 Grand Prix in Budapest on Sunday. After 70 hot laps, the Australian finished ahead of his McLaren colleague Lando Norris and Lewis Hamilton, who was on the podium for the 200th time.
The first McLaren double victory in three years sounds like the perfect holiday for the British team, although the mood was noticeably dampened shortly after crossing the finish line.
“You dream of a race like this as a little kid,” said the 23-year-old, who is the first Grand Prix winner born in this millennium. He added: “We made it a little more painful than was necessary.”
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Failed strategy
The bone of contention was McLaren’s questionable pit stop strategy. This led to Piastri losing his fairly safe lead on lap 48 to pole position man Norris, whom he had overtaken at the start.
Aware of the fact that they had prevented Piastri from achieving the first success of his career, the team management persuaded Norris to let the man behind him take the win. “You can’t win the World Championship on your own,” was the message over the pit radio. It was only two laps before the end that Norris let Piastri pass without hesitation. Although Norris was the first to congratulate the first-time winner, it was clear that he didn’t like the decision.
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“Because of the World Championship,” said the 24-year-old, referring to his role as the first pursuer of Max Verstappen, who was still leading by 76 points, “I lost a lot of points. That’s just how I feel. It was the right decision for the team.” While observers attested to a “stress test” for the now dominant racing team, team boss Andrea Stella naturally tried to downplay what had happened. “I would have been surprised if Lando had said: ‘Yes, of course I’ll gladly give him first place’,” said the Italian, saying that every good driver needs a will to win.
Nobody knew whether Norris would actually allow the castling. “The longer it took, the more nervous I became, of course,” admitted Piastri. “But the team managed it well.”
Discord around Verstappen
Behind Charles Leclerc, Verstappen finished a turbulent Grand Prix in fifth place, with the turbulence starting in the first corner when the world champion, who had started the race from third place, tried to push past Norris on the outside.
Ultimately, the Dutchman overtook his opponent while driving far off the track. Since he was threatened with a penalty, team boss Christian Horner instructed Verstappen to let Norris pass again on the fourth attempt. The world governing body issued its verdict shortly afterwards and there were no penalties. “So you can now force drivers off the track? Then you can tell the FIA that we will race like this from now on,” Verstappen radioed angrily.
With Leclerc and Hamilton, the defending champion was supposed to compete behind the leading McLaren duo. Over-motivated, he tried to overtake the significantly slower Hamilton on the inside on much fresher tires. He braked far too late and Verstappen was thrown off the track when the tires touched.
Image: GEPA pictures
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Image: GEPA pictures
The 26-year-old was lucky, his Red Bull car survived the incident unscathed, he only dropped back to fifth place. Hamilton was convinced afterwards that he would not have been able to keep Verstappen behind him for long without the incident: “When you see how quickly he closed the gap, there’s not much you can do.” And the Brit added about his opponent’s completely botched overtaking maneuver: “He went to the inside, I stayed on my line – a racing incident, I would say.” Verstappen’s publicly criticized Red Bull colleague Sergio Perez finished seventh behind Carlos Sainz’s Ferrari.
Before heading to Spa-Francorchamps next week, McLaren (338 points) has pushed Ferrari (322) out of second place in the Constructors’ World Championship. The gap to leader Red Bull (389) is manageable given that there are still eleven races to go.