🇭🇺 F1'24: R13 - Oscar-winning coincidences

A McLaren 1-2 after Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen collide? What year is it? To add to the coincidences, Lando Norris was the second papaya car to cross the line behind an Australian teammate.

But this was not Monza 2021, and a high-speed track where anything can happen. This was the twisty Hungaroring, with Budapest thrusting McLaren into centre stage, truly promoting them up the bill from the understudies they were three years ago.

But to continue the theatrical metaphors, the behaviour of the team’s leading star has come under scrutiny. Lando Norris led for part of the race after the team undercut Oscar Piastri. The reasoning was to cover off Hamilton, or a late charge from Verstappen on medium tyres, but because of their collision, neither materialised. Instead, with a 1-2 all but secured, you got some high-speed psychodrama that no Netflix box set could provide.

And with the drama being played out in a cramped cockpit and a crowded pitwall, we only got to see the faces of one third of the conversation. We don't know what Norris was thinking when he was being told to take it easier across certain corners, or when the team were pleading with him to “do the right thing”.

But…was it the right thing?

The expectation in the second half of the race was that Verstappen would finish third. 15 points to add to the title defence and another podium. Either way, it meant that Norris, the driver closest to Verstappen in the Championship, would gain on him.

There was no dramatic twist as Norris eventually moved across for an Oscar-winning performance (ok, enough with the metaphor) giving all those coincidences outlined at the start of this very delayed blog. I'll add one more, involving Australia again, where in 1998, David Coulthard moved across in Melbourne for Mika Hakkinen to win the race after the Scottish driver honoured a ‘gentlemen’s agreement’ between the two.

That was the season opener, so no serious questions about the title, but the Finn won it by 14 points ahead of Michael Schumacher, so like the Britpop craze of the late 90s, it was all part of The Masterplan.

But please allow the zip forward back to the present day. Norris moved aside and Piastri took his first Grand Prix victory and the seventh different winner this season. 

I'm not normally a supporter of Australians breaking their ducks, but it was difficult not to root (in the British sense) for Piastri. Supremely talented, the former F2 and F3 champion now truly making his mark on the elite. But despite these celebrations, there are questions to be asked about the manner of the victory, with Norris seemingly tempted to take matters in his own hands, and what the consequences might have been.

F1 champions are meant to be ruthless, uncaring about anything in their singular pursuit of winning the world championship. You’re not meant to have the capacity to think about how anyone else is feeling - let alone the other side of the garage. But perhaps McLaren are showing the more modern side of the sport. Norris and Piastri isn’t Senna-Prost or Hamilton-Rosberg (yet). They seem to be teammates who actively get on with each other, which isn’t an easy situation to cultivate, especially when you have the next American flavour of the month being signed up from IndyCar (and then being ditched, and rejoining etc).

Way way way back when, when I started writing this blog, the literal first article was about how F1 was a team sport, comparing teammate point splits - it was not very good, but I was still learning. I didn’t know a  lot, but I was right about F1 being more than the driver in the cockpit. In fact, if Norris overcomes the deficit to Max Verstappen to win a world championship, he will join a hall of fame that holds Lewis Hamilton, Mika Hakkinen, Ayrton Senna, Alain Prost, Niki Lauda, James Hunt and Emerson Fittapaldi as McLaren’s World Champions. But, the other thing Norris would have in common with them all is that the historic team would receive zero dollars for the achievement.

F1 is a team sport simply because the prize money at the end of the season is divided by where teams finish in the Teams’ Championship. In 2021, when Max Verstappen won the world title, Red Bull finished second to Mercedes in the Team battle and therefore Mercedes took the winner’s share of the prize money.

McLaren winning in Hungary secured 43 points for the team, getting them closer to the lead. Norris giving up second was morally the right thing to do, even if the method might have been questionable. We won’t know whether it was the right decision until later, but for now, despite all the coincidences we mentioned earlier, this felt like an almost unprecedented situation.

The biggest difference between this and Coulthard-Hakkinen, and even Monza 2021 was the entertainment value. In Monza, Norris asked “if this is the order the team wants to finish in”. Contrast that to 2024 where there were messages almost every lap about overdriving, or the pleading from engineer Will Joseph.

While it’s true that McLaren needs Lando Norris, Lando Norris also needs McLaren.

This is a much-delayed blog - and not the first delayed blog of the season. I enjoy doing this, but finding the time is getting more difficult. We will continue - thanks for your support by subscribing, sharing or reading. It really is appreciated.

Above: Me, trying to find the time to write…