Piastri scores maiden win amid Norris team order defiance

Oscar Piastri clinched his first Formula 1 victory at the Hungarian Grand Prix, after a protracted McLaren team orders saga with Lando Norris throughout the final stint.

Piastri had led the entirety of the race after taking the lead into Turn 1, opening up a healthy lead over team-mate Norris in the opening stint and through the first pitstop.

“In every condition we had the race under control to get the 1-2. I don’t remember when McLaren’s last 1-2 was!” Piastri said.

“The longer you leave [the team orders call], the more you get a bit nervous. But it was well executed by the team, it was the right call, I put myself in the right position at the start.”

Despite McLaren’s intention to manage the race, giving Norris the undercuts but with the express purpose of covering off the cars behind, the plot thickened when Piastri lost time on the exit of Turn 11 to bring Norris within 1.5 seconds.

The Australian driver managed to stabilise that lead ahead of the final pitstops and, despite being aware Norris would undercut him in the final round of pitstops, Piastri was told “not to worry” about his team-mate with the expectation that McLaren would switch positions.

Norris hence made his stop on lap 45 and started to turn in quick laptimes on the medium tyre, with Piastri calling in on lap 47 and – as expected – being undercut by Norris.

Told to switch positions whenever he had an opportunity, Norris proved increasingly recalcitrant and told the team that he would only consider doing so whenever Piastri caught up – citing his younger team-mate’s fresher tyres. Norris had extended his lead to six seconds, initially showing few signs of willingness to comply.

As the orders to Norris eventually became increasingly firm, the Briton eventually relented and slowed down on the start-finish straight at the start of lap 68, giving Piastri the lead and assuming second place.

Lewis Hamilton collected third place after surviving a Turn 1 assault from an increasingly frustrated Max Verstappen, who seemed to be in an irascible mood throughout the grand prix.

Verstappen had first been irked by the decision to let Norris through after the championship leader ran wide at Turn 1 and stayed ahead, and then sounded off about a strategy that allowed Hamilton to undercut him for third.

Hamilton had defended hard at the end of his second stint…