McLaren achieved its seventh one-two of the season in Hungary, the fourth in a row. The numbers speak for themselves. There is no other team at the level of the Woking team this year. The constructors' championship is practically in his hands. The only knot left to untie essentially concerns the fight for the drivers' championship. Who will win the title between Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris?
Yesterday, during the Hungarian GP, the battle between the drivers was during just a couple of laps in the end. The Australian had just enough time to make two attacks and then retract immediately behind his claws when he realised he would in no way be able to get past Lando, unless a mistake came from him.
McLaren opposes Piastri's idea
A real shame because, things could have gone very differently if only McLaren had complied with the requests of the world championship leader, Oscar Piastri. During the second stint, when it was clear that Norris (despite fourth position) had become the favorite to win the GP having chosen to focus on just one stop, the Australian asked the team to be put on the same strategy so as to try to defend the best position achieved on the track.
Oscar's request arrives around lap 38°. From the box, the technicians are hesitant. Leclerc had been leading the race until then and returned to the pits during the 41° lap. Piastri finds himself in front of the group and insists on making a only one-stop, but on lap 46° they call him back, forcing him to go on two-stops strategies and effectively taking away his freedom of speech. Oscar couldn't do the race he wanted. Shortly before the pit the world championship leader was leading the race with an 8 seconds margin over his teammate who was recovering around 1.5” per lap (on average) thanks to the freshest Hard tyres. Oscar should have finished the race by covering 52 laps on the white C3s (observing the data Antonelli finished with just one stop, covering 48 laps on the Hards, while Ocon 55).
The road was right. Would he have won? Would Norris have easily passed him? Would McLaren have put the one-two at risk? We are not interested in any of this now.
The issue is that the papaya team prevented Piastri from pursuing his idea of a race, forcing him to do something he didn't want. From the perspective of a championship in which the team is not sure of winning the constructors' title it would have been a more than appropriate decision. It would have been the right thing to do, but McLaren has a disarming peace of mind from that point of view.
We understand McLaren and understand Piastri's disappointment, but is it right to behave like this?
Now we ask ourselves: how far could the papaya rules go? It's right not to fight, it's right to think again from a team perspective until you have the mathematical certainty that at least one of the two drivers will win the championship, perhaps however, preventing the drivers from expressing their race thoughts could be a little too much.
Norris and Piastri are playing for the title and if they are practically also denied the chance to compete based on the ideas that come to mind to try to prevail over their opponent, then what will decided the 2025 world champion?
It's difficult to choose a side, because McLaren also has its reasons. The team wanted to win a certain one-two and adopted the same principle that he has always adopted since the beginning of the year. Norris was able to go on the one-stop strategy due to his ‘’unfortunate’’ start to the race, while Oscar had to go on two-stops strategies because he found himself in the fight from the first lap and therefore wore out the tires more.
By weighing the two things we can understand both the team's reasons and Piastri's disappointment, but the question always remains: is it right to behave like this?
Photo: McLaren
Read in the original language (Italian): La McLaren toglie a Piastri la libertà di espressione. Giusta scelta per il mondiale?
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