Controversy strikes on the McLaren pit wall during the 2024 Hungary Grand Prix

The 2024 Hungary Grand Prix which took place at the Hungaroring showcased an astounding McLaren 1-2 finish with a 7th different Grand Prix winner in Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris finishing 2nd. However, there was some controversy before this result was determined.

The Starting Grid and Race Start

Lando Norris had claimed Pole position in qualifying for this race with his teammate Oscar Piastri 2nd and both the McLarens had a front-row lockout. Max Verstappen, the championship leader, qualified in 3rd, behind the 2 McLarens. Carlos Sainz followed this order in 4th, Lewis Hamilton in 5th and Charles Leclerc in 6th.

The race started fast for all the cars with Oscar Piastri swooping on the inside and taking the lead of the race. Max Verstappen went wide on the first corner and gained a position to Lando Norris which he had to concede later on. In this kerfuffle, Lewis Hamilton gained a position on Sainz and Leclerc then overtook Sainz too.

The Race

The lead of the race was being well maintained by Oscar Piastri and it was looking promising that this was going to be his first victory in Formula 1. For 2nd place, there were 3 cars in contention, namely, Norris, Verstappen and Hamilton. So to avoid any loss of time or to get undercut by any of these contenders, McLaren decided to pit Norris before Piastri which caused an undercut on Piastri and Norris got the lead of the race. He was given clear instructions to restore the race order as it was before the pit stop. All this while, Hamilton and Verstappen were battling it out for 3rd place and Verstappen locked up and made contact with Lewis Hamilton and went off the track where he lost a position to Leclerc. He later got that position back but could not catch up to Hamilton.

The Controversy

Lando Norris was given first service in the McLaren pit to prevent a loss of 2nd position and this was made clear to him when they pitted him before his teammate and the race leader, Piastri. On the following lap, McLaren pitted Piastri but the fresher Medium tyres on Norris gave him an an advantage of pace on the track which allowed him to undercut Piastri and get into the lead of the race. The gap between teammates of McLaren just kept increasing and it went up to 6 seconds. It was clear at that point of time that McLaren would secure a 1-2 but the order of that 1-2 was not yet determined.

The race engineers of both Norris and Piastri were trying to make Norris restore the race order and put Piastri back into the lead of the race but Norris did not immediately comply with these team orders. He told his engineer to inform Piastri that once the latter would catch Norris, the positions would be swapped peacefully.

Norris continued to increase the lead of the race while his engineer was instructing him to save his tyres on different turns as a way to make him slow down. He refused to obey any of those instructions and kept driving. He tried to convince his team that he would have fought Piastri for the win anyway if it wasn't for the undercut, but the team just told him to "do the right thing" and give the position back. Norris needed some convincing to make him restore the position which involved his engineer, Will Joseph, telling him to remember the "Sunday morning debriefs".

Eventually on lap 68 out of 70 of the race, Lando Norris slowed down to let his teammate past from 6 seconds behind and then finished the race as a McLaren 1-2 with Oscar Piastri as the winner.

The Aftermath

Lando was asked during his post-race interview by Nico Rosberg about this situation and he said that he did what he thought was right, he put himself in Oscar's shoes and realized that Oscar would have done it for him, so he swapped the places and gave him the win.

In all this controversy, a record got overshadowed. Lewis Hamilton became the first racer ever to achieve 200 podiums in Formula 1 and he deserved that podium for the way that he defended against Verstappen, given that Hamilton was really struggling with his tyres.

In the World Driver's Championship (WDC) battle, Norris has closed the gap to Verstappen, but only ever so slightly, but in the Constructor's Championship battle, McLaren gained a significant advantage over Red Bull with the maximum points this weekend for the orange team.

What are your views on this controversy? Do you think it was fair for McLaren to ask for a swap of positions? When it is clear that Lando Norris is the main WDC contender, do you think it was thoughtful on McLaren's part to order a Piastri win? Let me know in the comments.