The final stint of the Hungarian Grand Prix provided one of the most remarkable examples of a team convincing its driver to give up a victory to his team mate.
Teams have issued similar orders many times in past races, and not just McLaren. What made this occasion unusual was that McLaren didn’t simply bark out an order, but coaxed Lando Norris for lap and after until he finally gave way.
Once he did, Norris remarked “you don’t need to say anything”. By that point his race engineer Will Joseph had said so much it was hard to imagine more ways he might have twisted his driver’s arm.
McLaren faced the dilemma because Norris jumped ahead of his team mate Oscar Piastri through the final round of pit stops. Piastri led from the start until then, and although McLaren pitted Norris before his team mate the first time around the drivers remained in their original order that time.
Norris might have been forgiven for assuming McLaren intended to move him ahead by pitting him first during their initial pit stops, as that is exactly what they did in the same race 12 months early. But this time they made it clear to him that was not the plan:
| Lap: 17/70 NOR: 1’26.485, PIA: 1’24.248 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Joseph | Lando, Hamilton has just pitted for a hard tyre. | Stallard | Hamilton has pitted. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Joseph | 100% pace, please, 100% pace. | Stallard | Oscar once past used the pace. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Joseph | Lando box this lap please box this lap. How’s the balance? | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Joseph | Box this lap, box this lap. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Lap: 18/70 NOR: 1’41.807, PIA: 1’26.496 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Joseph | This is out lap two or three. Stint two. We are not trying to undercut. Tsunoda and then Hamilton at the start-finish line they’re behind. And we’re going to need to go long on these tyres. | Stallard | Oscar box this lap, box this lap. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Joseph | Hard tyres have shown high deg, so we’ll have to manage them. | Piastri | Copy, box. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Lap: 19/70 NOR: 1’23.779, PIA: 1’42.479 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Joseph | Oscar will be the car ahead. | Stallard | Okay Oscar, Lando is three seconds behind. We stopped earlier than planned to cover Hamilton. You can bring the tyre in. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Joseph | Lando we potentially stopped earlier than ideal so this is a cruising run on this tyre. The pace in the car is there. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
After a long middle stint, McLaren prepared to bring their drivers in for their final stops. As was the case the first time around, they were concerned about the threat from Lewis Hamilton behind and chose to bring Norris in before Piastri:
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