When Oscar Piastri began his tenure with McLaren at the start of last season, the team looked lost in the midfield, well behind the top teams and mired in a battle for fifth in the constructors' championship. Now, less than 18 months later, McLaren is a force to be reckoned with and Piastri can call himself an Formula One Grand Prix winner.
The 23-year-old Australian earned his first win in F1 on Sunday at the Hungarian Grand Prix, inching past his teammate Lando Norris to secure a 1–2 finish for McLaren. Though the two drivers dealt with a particularly tense dynamic in the latter stages of the race, both capped off a dominant weekend in style and carved out a significant chunk of Red Bull’s lead in the standings. Lewis Hamilton rounded out the top-three, earning his 200th career podium and his third in the last four races.
Here’s what to know from a consequential—and rather tense—Hungarian Grand Prix.
McLaren Finally Puts All the Pieces Together
For the first time since Imola in 2021, McLaren locked up the top two spots on the podium and cemented what many have begun to think in recent weeks—that the team has the fastest car on the grid. Norris and Piastri were the best on the track all weekend long from practice to qualifying to the race Sunday, when they nabbed the top-two spots early and only gave them back to cover off their decidedly slower opponents.
It’s been a long time coming for McLaren since Norris won his first F1 race in Miami in May. What followed has been a series of “almosts” highlighted by five-straight second-place finishes in Imola, Monaco, Canada, Spain and Austria. A third-place result for Norris at Silverstone two weeks ago was also the result of a misguided call from the team, so Sunday’s result was vindication for all of the near-misses.
The 1–2 finish in Hungary is exactly the momentum McLaren needed with just one race remaining until the summer break. Outscoring Red Bull 43–16 on the weekend, the team now trails by just 51 points in the constructors' championship, a margin that earlier in the year was much larger and already growing to be insurmountable.
Individually, Norris missed out on a complete set of points (more on that below) but still picked up eight points on drivers championship leader Max Verstappen. Piastri remained fifth in the standings but now has the Ferraris of Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz in his sights.
O.K., but What About That McLaren Dynamic
Though the team may have left the weekend with a full boat of points, it wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows in the McLaren garage at the checkered flag, even after a maiden win for Piastri.
Earlier in the race, both cars were comfortably out front, but the pit wall opted to bring Norris in for a final change of tires before Piastri, in order to make sure that the former stayed in front of Hamilton and any other would-be challengers. The result of the move launched Norris into the lead with about 20 laps to go, putting Piastri on the back foot, despite him maintaining a deserved lead for much of the race.
What transpired over the closing segments of the Grand Prix can only be described as surreal. The McLaren pit wall and Norris’s own race engineer pleaded with him to give back the lead to his teammate, but lap after lap passed and the 24-year-old neglected to do so. The team tried multiple different approaches, from the analytical to the emotional, but Norris only continued to extend his lead out front, at one point reaching a gap of more than five seconds over Piastri. Finally, after the pleas continued into the start of lap 68, Norris slowed down on the main straight and allowed his teammate to pass, a race order that would hold for the last few laps of the Grand Prix.
Joseph getting increasingly desperate on the radio to Norris: "The way to win a championship is not by yourself. It’s with the team. You’re going to need Oscar, and you’re going to need the team." #F1 #HungarianGP
— Luke Smith (@LukeSmithF1) July 21, 2024
The impact of the situation was readily apparent after the race was over. Piastri delivered a rather subdued message over the radio to thank the team for its efforts in his first career win. Norris shrugged off a question about the demand from the pit wall in his post-race interview. In fact, the two teammates hardly acknowledged one another after exiting their cars, making what should have been a celebratory moment an awkward one.
McLaren bears responsibility for the situation, making what had been a well-managed race into a tense one. Unfortunately, the ones left to deal with the fallout will be the drivers—a pair that needs to be unified if they hope to reel in Red Bull and win the constructors' championship.
Hamilton vs. Verstappen Déjà Vu
Stop if you’ve heard this before: Hamilton and Max Verstappen fight a hard battle on-track for multiple laps only to collide at a pivotal juncture of the race.
No, it’s 2024 and no longer ‘21, but a familiar scenario played out at the Hungaroring on Sunday. The two multiple-world champions found themselves at odds during multiple points of the Grand Prix with Verstappen, on fresher tires, chasing after Hamilton for a podium position. What began around Lap 30 came back with eights laps left, only the second time around there was contact.
Verstappen threw his Red Bull down the inside at Turn 1, locking up his tires and flying straight through the apex. Hamilton, likely not expecting the 26-year-old to attempt such a move, simply turned to his right, clipping Vestappen’s back left tire and sending the Red Bull airborne in a manner that was reminiscent of the two drivers’ frightening crash at Monza in 2021.
VERSTAPPEN AND HAMILTON COME TO BLOWS!!!!!!!#HungarianGP pic.twitter.com/kylueRON7X
— Mr Matthew CFB (@MrMatthew_CFB) July 21, 2024
Coincidentally, the last time Hamilton and Verstappen collided and Verstappen’s car ended up in the air, the result of the race was strikingly similar—a McLaren 1–2 finish with Daniel Ricciardo claiming victory and Norris finishing as the runner-up.
The biggest takeaway from the clash is that these drivers now seem to be back on level footing after a few years of Verstappen out-pacing the field. The Red Bull driver was frustrated throughout the afternoon in Hungary, irritably clashing with his crew on the radio and complaining about the balance of his car. Nothing seems to be comfortable for the three-time world champion at a time when the rest of the field is closing in.
Sergio Pérez’s Necessary Recovery Drive
Verstappen’s Red Bull teammate came into the weekend needing to show a significant uptick in performance. Instead, he did perhaps the one thing he couldn’t afford to do—wreck his car into the wall during qualifying for the second race in a row.
However, Sunday was a different story for Pérez. The 34-year-old started on hard tires and quickly maneuvered himself into better track position, ultimately up into the points where he would finish an impressive seventh place. The performance was exactly what the Red Bull driver needed—calm, poised and reliable.
Perez wasn’t the only one to cut his way through the field Sunday. George Russell, who started in 17th following his own dreadful outing in qualifying, climbed up the standings to finish in eighth and nab double points for Mercedes.
Now whether or not the recovery drive will save Pérez’s seat is a different story. He has just 21 points in the last seven races and Red Bull doesn’t seem to have the utmost confidence that he’s the best option to help guide the team to another championship. Though one week surely won’t define the decision, the Belgian Grand Prix in Spa next Sunday will be Pérez’s last best chance to put his best foot forward before the paddock heads on vacation and the powers that be at Red Bull convene to make a decision.
This article was originally published on www.si.com as Hungarian Grand Prix Takeaways: McLaren Puts the Pieces Together.
