McLaren Had Their Fingers Crossed That Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris’ Friendship Would Save Tragic Strategy Call

Although McLaren scored a 1-2 at the Hungarian GP, the drivers and engineers on the pit wall would like to forget the race. The Woking team messed up the strategy by not pitting their lead car and ended up having to resort to team orders to sort the drivers’ positions out. Oscar Piastri has now explained that McLaren put the team orders in play based on his trust in the teammates. 

“I fully get why Lando was asking questions and no one’s gonna wanna give up the lead,” said Piastri in an interview on Sky Sports. He added,

“I think we all remembered that certain decisions and pitstop were made because of the trust with me and Lando. It’s important that the trust is there and we’re able to execute situations like that.”

I dreamt of this day as a little kid back in Australia. A truly unbelievable feeling. Thank you to everyone who has helped and supported me and thanks to the team for this opportunity and all their hard work. Such a special day pic.twitter.com/Ev03RmpHAD

— Oscar Piastri (@OscarPiastri) July 21, 2024

Piastri joined the grid last year and Norris hailed the Aussie as a driver who already pushed him to do better. Norris accepted the role of Piastri’s mentor but over time their dynamic has turned into a great friendship. However, the Hungarian GP incident was believed to have fractured this friendship.

But, the dust has now settled with Norris and Piastri accepting the race result and putting it behind them. These team order pills are tough to swallow and sting for a bit, but eventually, it comes around to realize it was for the better. Bottas had to follow multiple team orders when he was Hamilton’s teammate.

After the Budapest incident, Bottas was asked if he regrets following those team orders. The Finn stated that he regretted nothing and that he is an amazing team player. Before the Belgian GP, Norris talked about how McLaren could’ve handled the Budapest strategies better.

Norris regrets clouding Piastri’s First F1 win

The 2024 Hungarian GP was Piastri’s first win in Formula 1. However, the Aussie didn’t sound excited on the radio nor did he celebrate much after getting out of the car. Both Piastri and Norris seemed subdued during the post-race interviews and during the podium celebrations as well.

As per ESPN, Norris explained that he feels bad for making Piastri’s first race win gloomy. He said, “The fact that I kind of clouded over Oscar’s first race win in Formula One is something I’ve not felt too proud about.”

“The fact we had a 1-2 and nothing was really spoken about from that side, yeah, that’s the kind of thing I felt worse about.”

 After acknowledging the trust in Norris, Piastri also suggested that if the Brit needs help in his drivers’ championship challenge later in the season, he’d be more than happy to oblige and help the team bring home another championship.