McLaren team boss Andrea Stella would have preferred to talk about almost everything differently after the Hungarian Grand Prix.
Barely eighteen months after taking office, he had led McLaren from the doldrums to dominance. On his watch in Budapest the team had achieved their first front-row exclusion in almost a dozen years, and on Sunday it had become just the second one-two in a decade.
McLaren was back at the top of Formula 1. The Constructors’ Championship was live. There are even whispers of a tilt in the drivers’ championship, with Red Bull Racing appearing to be stuck in the title defense.
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But instead of enjoying the success – and instead of celebrating Oscar Piastri’s first victory – Stella became involved in a conversation about team orders.
A reverse strategy at the final pit stops left Lando Norris ahead of long-time leader Oscar Piastri, who had led comfortably for most of the Grand Prix after squeezing the lead at the first corner.
The team didn’t think twice about the incidental switch. Over the past season and a half, Norris and Piastri had always followed team instructions with minimal fuss. Norris’s obedience was taken for granted.
But then the Englishman stopped responding to radio messages.
By the time race engineer Will Joseph got a response, it was clear that Norris had no intention of giving the seat back.
Round after round, Joseph begged him to obey. Round after round, he received excuses on the radio and claimed rationalizations in return.
It wasn’t until the third to last lap that Norris had a change of heart, giving the place back to Piastri and allowing him to claim his first Grand Prix victory.
The negotiations were embarrassingly public and took some of the shine off McLaren’s breakthrough result.
But Stella didn’t see it that way.
According to the Italian manager, there was no doubt that Norris would return the place, as long as the right part of his brain could be tapped in time.
“I know Lando well enough,” he said per PlanetF1. “I know enough and well enough that we have the driver and the team player in Lando.
“These two elements came together perfectly today to generate what was the right thing to do for the team, for Oscar and for Lando.
“No driver’s nature is such that he would say, ‘Okay, when are we going to do that?’ They always hope. they’re P1 in a Formula 1 Grand Prix, and they’re hoping, ‘Oh, maybe the team will let me make it.’
“I would be very worried if Lando had not shown here that I am a driver, because that is the impetus you need to fight hard. He demonstrated the spirit of the driver.”
But it’s not exactly a case of ‘all’s well that ends well’.
Norris gets irritable with Hamilton | 00:34
OBEY OR YOU CANNOT BE PART OF MCLAREN
Stella’s post-race comments were a two-sided coin.
On the one hand, he expressed unequivocal confidence that Norris would play the team game. McLaren gave him his Formula 1 debut and put him at the heart of plans to rise to the top of the championship. His loyalty is absolute.
But the downside is the expectation that team loyalty will be returned.
“We have conversations with our drivers before every race,” Stella continued
“The discussion we are having is about our principles, because it is very difficult to manage Formula 1 races if you only talk about rules like ‘the car in front of you has priority at the stop’ – you really risk compromising yourself to bring a problem, because every driver desperately tries to do that. to be in front in the first corner, because then they want priority.
“We talk about our principles, go racing. One principle, to give just an example – I don’t want to give too much away, but this is simple – is: the interests of the team come first.
“If you mess up this case, you can’t be part of the McLaren Formula 1 team. That is the principle.”
Stella’s words seem to take on a subtly different meaning in this context. It’s not just that Norris was expected to follow team orders; He was expected to obey them or else.
“You have to be selfish sometimes in this sport,” Norris said afterwards, describing his inner turmoil during the final stint. ‘You have to think about yourself. That is priority number one.
“I’m also a team player, so I was pretty crazy in my head at the time.
“It wasn’t easy, but I also understood the situation I was in and I was confident that I would always have done it on the last lap.”
It’s an interesting illustration of driver psychology and the balance of power between driver and team. It’s always in play, but it becomes a much more delicate balance when winnings are thrown into the mix.
That’s why expectations of Norris’s endorsement – after years of experience with the team and more than 18 months together with Piastri – were suddenly derailed, even though he eventually returned to normal.
Circumstances have changed.
Norris V McLaren: full radio battle | 04:44
A CHAMPIONSHIP BATTLE TOO EARLY?
There is no doubt that the Constructors’ Championship is there for the taking.
In one race weekend, McLaren took 27 points off Red Bull Racing’s lead, reducing the gap from 78 points to 51 points.
On this stretch it will easily take the lead shortly after the August break.
Even if Red Bull Racing takes the increasingly expected route of abandoning Sergio Pérez, McLaren proved in Hungary that, at least on some weekends, it will roll out of the pit lane with undoubtedly the fastest car and dominate races.
While it may not be the fastest car on every track, the past two months of racing have shown that it is usually the best: the most usable, the most adaptable, especially compared to Red Bull Racing’s increasingly sensitive RB20.
It is a remarkable position that McLaren finds itself in.
It’s also earlier than expected.
At the start of the year, the team was talking about a return to regular winning contention in 2025. It was targeting the rule changes in 2026 as the best chance to get back into the championship fight.
But this year it may be favorite to win the team title, and Red Bull Racing’s uncertain development trajectory means Norris also has a shot at the drivers’ title, even if it is still a long shot.
McLaren has not undergone a stress test for these types of situations. Barely a year ago it was at the back of the peloton due to minor points. Now it goes hand in hand with the team that set a new record for dominance last season.
McLaren’s rebuild was obviously aimed at strengthening its technical capabilities, a progress that has clearly paid off.
But Stella also placed a strong emphasis on rebuilding the team’s culture to prepare it for battle on the front lines.
Part of this is that the drivers will fully invest in the process. There will come a time when McLaren will allow its drivers to compete freely for the championship, but the team is not there yet.
To reach that peak, it must first prove that the collective can move harmoniously in the same direction.
Treating its drivers fairly in the closing stages of the Hungarian Grand Prix and expecting loyalty in return was a test of that culture.
“We invest so much in culture, in values and in mentality,” said Stella per Racer. “We want to be able to keep this situation under control if we want to drive in the championship with Lando, with Oscar and with McLaren.”
“If it is the last few races and there is strong championship interest for one of the two drivers, we may reconsider this.
“But what I expect is for the other driver to come to me and say, ‘If you need my help with the other driver because he’s in championship competition, I’m available.’
“I think you build this ethos when you manage days like today in an honest way, as I think we did.”
‘A lot of anger’ Ricciardo rages at RB | 01:40
THIS WILL NOT BE THE FIRST FLIGHT POINT IN THE NORRIS-PIASTRI RIVALRY
McLaren has passed its first major test in Hungary, but it won’t be the last.
Norris and Piastri are among the most evenly matched teammates in Formula 1 on both Saturday and Sunday.
Among the front-runners, only Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz come close, with nothing separating the pair in qualifying but a wider margin between them in race conditions compared to the McLaren drivers.
McLaren season averages
Qualifying difference: Norris 1.69 places ahead (place: 4th)
Time difference: Norris 0.144 seconds ahead (place: 4th)
Racing differential: Norris 0.77 places ahead (place: 4th)
Points: Norris 40 points ahead (with an outscore of 1.27:1; rank: 4th)
In qualifying, only the teammates of Ferrari (0.5 places, 0.008 seconds), Alpine (0.77 places, 0.016 seconds) and Mercedes (1.54 places, 0.019 seconds) are closer.
The most closely matched teammates in race conditions come from Alpine (0.11 places), Sauber (0.18 places) and Mercedes (0.64 places).
Only Sauber (neither driver has scored), Ferrari and Mercedes have drivers with more equal points.
More importantly, McLaren is one of only three teams to have signed the same two drivers for 2025. Aston Martin and Red Bull Racing – if Pérez stays in place next year – are the others.
It’s by far the most competitive line-up that will continue beyond the end of this season, and that means the team can’t bite this through its teeth the way Ferrari has been able to wave away the occasional friendly fire between the teams. drivers this year. It must now be nipped in the bud.
Therefore, it was crucial to get the right result from the Hungarian Grand Prix.
Enacting the law today will be critical to enforcing the law tomorrow.
Both Piastri and Norris can now rest assured that the team will treat them fairly if future close calls arise. For now, the team can be confident that it has done enough to expect fairness from its drivers as well.
But with the prospect of one or both championships becoming more realistic with each round, the pressure on the McLaren culture will only increase.
This was just the first test. There will be 11 more this season.
