McLaren almost ruined Oscar Piastri’s chance of winning the Hungarian Grand Prix last weekend after they made a strange strategic decision. They decided to let Lando Norris undercut Piastri, only to then ask the Briton to let the Australian by later in the race. F1 journalist Christian Hewgill has now relooked at what transpired at the Hungaroring and found a new Lewis Hamilton angle.
Speaking on the Fast and the Curious podcast, Hewgill explained why it was unfair that McLaren asked Norris to let Piastri pass him, as the Australian was 3.5 seconds behind the Briton after the final round of pit stops. Hewgill believes that Norris could have further lost out to Hamilton if things went south during the race.
“He [Norris] is 3.5 seconds up the road [from Piastri]. At that point of a Grand Prix, you don’t want to give away 3.5 seconds because anything could happen,” he said. “Potentially Lewis [Hamilton] could have got Lando and Lando could have slipped further and further back”.
When his co-host Betty Glover asked Hewgill if McLaren made such a strategic decision to cover Hamilton, the latter replied, “For all intents and purposes, that is what it seemed to be”. Piastri’s post-race comments also make it seem that McLaren were desperate to cover the threat of Hamilton, which is why they pitted Norris before Piastri.
After the race in Hungary concluded and Piastri finished his maiden win celebrations, he explained the rationale behind McLaren’s strange strategy call.
Piastri believes McLaren had good reason to cover off Hamilton
The Australian revealed that the Woking-based outfit wanted to cover Hamilton’s threat for Norris and Max Verstappen’s possible threat to himself. Speaking to Tom Clarkson on the F1 Nation podcast, Piastri said,
“The information I had at the time was that Lando was boxing early to cover Lewis. And I was going long to cover Max [Verstappen] essentially, because I knew that he had stopped later. And I think we were just being very safe”.
Since Verstappen pitted 10 laps later than Hamilton, McLaren found it necessary for Piastri to go as long as possible in the race. As a result, they decided to pit Norris first as Hamilton was their main threat.
However, as Hewgill revealed on the Fast and the Curious podcast, McLaren perhaps misread the situation as Hamilton posed no real threat to Norris, given their pace was better. Likewise, Verstappen wasn’t as much of a threat to Piastri, as the Dutchman and his team were having issues of their own.
Instead, by making the decision that they took, McLaren were at greater risk of losing the one-two finish that they eventually managed to register despite all the chaos in the race.
