McLaren must learn lessons fast after Piastri's win was marred by Norris radio row

As the laps remaining tumbled down at the end of the Hungarian Grand Prix, there was one topic on everyone's lips as a papaya storm brewed at the front. Will Lando Norris Formula One’s Mr Popular – follow the instructions of his team? Or, in a shock twist, won’t he?

- KIERAN JACKSON

Norris, a championship contender for the first time, was put in an unenviable position by McLaren at the Hungaroring on Sunday. Having regained the lead of the race through the team’s questionable pit-stop strategy, the British driver was extending his lead on the track from teammate Oscar Piastri, originally in first after a super move at the start.

The gap was six seconds and there were less than five laps remaining. With his race engineer, Will Joseph, imploring his driver to follow protocol – “please, do it now” – Norris had to swing one way or the other. Be selfless, or selfish?

Reluctantly, but to the extreme relief of his team, he chose the former. Norris slowed down with three laps to go and allowed Piastri to pass him on the start-finish straight, with the Australian subsequently cruising to his first F1 grand prix victory. But the realisation of a lifelong dream had a sour taste, despite the team’s first one-two finish in three years. Norris bluntly told his engineer: “You don’t need to say anything.”

Norris, quite admirably and in contrast to an angry Max Verstappen in Budapest, regained his composure in his media commitments afterwards. While admitting it “hurt” to give up a second race win, he congratulated Piastri and his team on a terrific haul of points. In a move that would have been altogether more dramatic, he also revealed his plan was to swap positions a matter of seconds before the end.

“I was going to wait until the last corner of the last lap,” he said. “But they [McLaren] said if there was a safety car all of a sudden, then I couldn’t let Oscar go through and it would have made me look like a bit of an idiot. I was like, fair point, so I let him go.”