Lap 17 in the 2023 Hungarian Grand Prix at the Hungaroring: With Lando Norris, McLaren brings in the poorly placed car first for the pit stop. And that has consequences, because after Oscar Piastri was also changing tires, he suddenly found himself behind his team-mate. So did McLaren employ a hidden stable management in favor of Norris here?
McLaren boss Zak Brown firmly denies this on “Sky UK” and says: “It was purely about the best strategy for the team, based on what we thought Lewis [Hamilton] would do.”
And Hamilton posed an acute danger at this point: He had just appeared in the DRS window behind Norris and stopped on lap 16. That put McLaren under pressure to also turn off to change tires. The only question was: Which car first?
Why McLaren brought Norris in first
McLaren team boss Andrea Stella answers this question as follows: “You just use the natural sequence and cover with the car that is more exposed to risk, only then with the other.” In other words, because Norris was the vehicle behind and was therefore more at risk of being overtaken by Hamilton with an undercut, McLaren brought Norris in first.
But that alone was not the decisive factor, says Stella, especially since Piastri spent 0.370 seconds less time in the pit lane during his pit stop on lap 18 than Norris did on lap 17. But what was more decisive was Norris’ “incredibly fast” out-lap, explains Stella. “That then led to Oscar losing the position.”
He, too, emphasizes that it was never about giving one driver an advantage and putting the other at a disadvantage: “When making decisions like this, we put the team first. We think as a team. And only then do we tackle the internal situation secondarily.”
“When you’re dealing with other opponents outside of the team, you have to be very careful that you don’t get bogged down in an internal duel that could harm the entire team. We want to avoid that,” says Stella, which is why Norris was preferred.
How Piastri reacts to the pit stop order
Piastri doesn’t concern himself with any of this. The scene had “not yet been explained to him,” he said immediately after the race in Hungary. “I guess the undercut turned out to be a lot bigger than expected.”
From his point of view, it was “of course not ideal” to get back on the track behind Norris. “The bottom line is that it didn’t change my race,” said Piastri. “I finished 30 seconds behind him, so it didn’t make much of a difference. I just didn’t have the pace to keep up with Lando or even attack him.”
What damage Piastri had on the car and why
But why didn’t Piastri keep up with the McLaren sister car after the first stint? Team boss Brown points to “a little” damage to Piastri’s MCL60, which ultimately led to Hamilton getting past.
Team boss Stella confirms this and says that Piastri drove too hard over the curbs, which is why the underbody of the vehicle suffered. “It was about downforce on the rear axle, the power dropped a bit and the tire wear was a bit higher,” he explains. “That was one reason Oscar wasn’t able to keep up with Lando and it helped other cars catch up.”
The question remains how the damage occurred. Perhaps that scene on Lap 49 where Red Bull driver Sergio Perez overtook and Piastri slid off the right-hand side in a battle for position at Turn 2? “Not necessarily,” says Stella. However, based on the underbody sensors, it was recognized that the aerodynamics were disrupted.
Tire wear was a “killer” for Piastri in Hungary
Above all, the increased tire wear cost Piastri, says Stella. Piastri himself describes the wear and tear as a “real killer” for his race in Hungary and says: “I guess that was the key to success in this race. I made life easy for myself in the first stint [mit dem guten Start und P2]but from there it went.”
“The first stint was good, the second and third were pretty average. I just lacked a lot of pace and I had problems with the tires,” explains Piastri. “That’s why I’m happy with P5, because at times it looked like I’d fall even further behind.”
And it was close at the finish: Piastri crossed the line a mere 3.253 seconds ahead of Mercedes driver George Russell.
What homework Piastri takes from Hungary
“We have to look at that,” says Piastri. “It’s one of the first races where I’ve had so much tire wear, with multiple pit stops and things like that, so there’s a lot to learn there.”
“The car can do more. Lando has shown that we can stay up front even in hot weather. So I have to see what I can do better to protect the tires better. Unfortunately, you don’t learn that in training or testing. You have to learn it the hard way in the races. And of course I want to improve as quickly as possible because there are trophies waiting for us if we do everything right.”
Because these are McLaren’s increased demands since the big Austria update. Without the technical innovations, McLaren would not have been the second force behind Red Bull in Hungary, says Piastri: “With the old car we would probably have finished a lap behind. So it was a really positive weekend for the team.”