Andrea Stella Spills the Beans on Sunday Morning Briefs That Made Lando Norris Concede Win to Oscar Piastri

The final phase of the 2024 Hungarian GP delivered a nail-biting finish as Oscar Piastri became F1’s 115th race winner. However, after his teammate Lando Norris was allowed to undercut the Australian to cover the drivers behind him and inherit the race lead in the process, it took a series of radio interventions to convince the #4 driver to hand the lead of the race back to Piastri.

Norris’ race engineer Will Joseph came onto the team radio consistently to persuade the Briton to “do the right thing” and let Piastri back into the lead. A big part of that conversation was Joseph reminding Norris about the team’s Sunday morning conversations and how he should respect those briefings.

Norris did eventually concede the lead to Piastri on lap 68 of the 70-lap race. In the aftermath of the Grand Prix, team principal Andrea Stella revealed what exactly they discussed about every Sunday before the races began.

Stella was quoted as saying, “There’s an entire approach to racing that we have with our team and drivers. We are in this together. None of us – the team, Lando, Oscar can go alone and that’s what we discuss Sunday mornings.”

Norris did play the team game indeed and let Piastri pass him on the pit straight with two laps to go. From there on, the 23-year-old Australian who had dreamt of this day since he was a child went on to take the chequered flag as a Formula 1 Grand Prix winner for the first time in his life.

Did Piastri have mixed feelings after the Hungarian GP?

Coming onto the team radio after winning his first-ever race, the #81 driver did not seem as elated as one would expect him to be. A subdued Piastri congratulated and thanked the team for leading him to the very top step of an F1 podium.

It all boiled down to the fact that as Piastri was struggling for pace on his last stint, Norris was building a substantial gap. It was only because Norris let him pass on the main straight that allowed Piastri to win.

Seemingly trying to prove a point, as Martin Brundle and David Croft explained, the Briton did seemingly take the shine off Piastri’s sublime drive. Piastri himself acknowledged how the last few laps were trickier for him than needed.

He told 2016 F1 world champion Nico Rosberg in the post-race interview, “The longer you leave it [to switch], the more you get a bit nervous but yeah I think it was the right thing. I put myself in the right position at the start and yes, my pace wasn’t what I wanted in the last stint but well managed by the team.”