It was inevitable that McLaren’s Hungarian GP fiasco would end up in the final cut of Drive to Survive’s season seven. The Netflix show has closely covered what Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri felt despite securing a perfect 1-2 finish for McLaren, as their team orders chaos dampened the joy of Piastri’s maiden victory.
Norris started the weekend by clinching pole while Piastri helped him lock out the front row for McLaren — the perfect Saturday they could have hoped for. With their drivers starting 1-2, several experts suggested that McLaren should implement some team orders, but they didn’t.
This allowed Piastri to attack Norris on the opening lap and take the lead of the race, which he held until the second round of pit stops. However, that is when things went incredibly south for the Woking outfit.
By mistake, McLaren pitted Norris before Piastri, and the Briton got the advantage of the undercut to end up ahead of the Australian. For the entire final stint of the race, the McLaren pit wall pleaded with Norris to do the ‘right’ thing and give the lead back to Piastri, which he deserved.
Norris eventually did let Piastri through to win his first race but the turn of events was far from ideal. So, there were muted celebrations in McLaren’s camp and Norris felt incredibly bad about it, something he revealed in episode six of season seven of DTS — Wheels of Fortune.
Lando Norris says he is not proud that McLaren’s team orders drama in Hungary overshadowed teammate Oscar Piastri’s maiden win.#BBCF1 #HungarianGP pic.twitter.com/HQP73cjt9r
— BBC Sport (@BBCSport) July 25, 2024
“There weren’t any (celebrations)…it made Oscar feel like underwhelmed and it made me feel like sh*t,” Norris told his good friend Max Fewtrell when asked to explain how did McLaren celebrate their 1-2 in Hungary.
While the McLaren camp were unhappy despite getting the perfect result, Red Bull team principal Christian Horner did not hesitate to take a jab at them.
“Max wouldn’t have swapped”: Horner’s take on McLaren’s disarray
With Norris fighting Max Verstappen for the Drivers’ title last season, the Briton needed every point he could get to bolster his chances of winning the championship. So, several experts were surprised that McLaren did not implement team orders in Hungary to help protect Norris’ lead.
After the race, Horner too gave his take on what Norris should have probably done. “I guarantee you Max wouldn’t have swapped,” Horner was caught telling his team members on the pit wall in episode six of DTS.
But McLaren were adamant that Norris should do the ‘right’ thing and he obliged, even if it meant losing out on seven points that could have been crucial to further pressure Verstappen and Red Bull.
However, as Verstappen won the championship with two races to spare in Las Vegas, perhaps even those additional seven points would not have made much of a difference by the time the season came to an end.
As Norris himself stated in his interview after the Las Vegas GP weekend, he lost the title in the first half of the season when Verstappen won seven of the opening 10 races. That early run of wins left him playing catch up all the time, and with Verstappen just needing to defend his lead in the standings, the Dutchman’s job was far easier.
