After fast reactions off the line, McLaren’s pairing of Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris were 1 and 2 to start the Hungarian GP. On paper, this should have given the British team a good chance to control the race on their terms.
Unfortunately for Andrea Stella’s squad (and especially Piastri) things became significantly more complicated.
A lack of pace on the hard tyre became a limiting factor for Piastri, who was struggling in his second stint. With that said, it was contact with Carlos Sainz that ultimately cost the Australian the net race lead.
Despite the 25-year-old’s usual calm and collective demeanour, he did not hold back in his post-race interviews.
Piastri reflects on costly Sainz incident
Throughout the last three days in Hungary, Norris has been setting the pace for McLaren. The British driver has been significantly more at ease in the MCL40 than his teammate in Budapest.
Still, Piastri rebounded from a compromised qualifying (after being blocked by Hamilton) to put himself in first place on lap 1.
Towards the final stages of the race, a gearbox race would eventually force him to retire. However, his chances of securing a first race victory of the season were virtually gone well before then.
Contact with Carlos Sainz, who Piastri was lapping, cost the Australian crucial seconds that ultimately allowed Norris to execute the overtake and come out ahead after making his stop.
Piastri made no secret of his anger during the race, and maintained similar disapproval post-race. Speaking after the chequered flag, he was unimpressed by Sainz’s justification for the incident – being that he wasn’t aware Piastri was behind.
“For me that’s no excuse at all,” the Australian told Viaplay. “That’s got to be one of the dumbest things I’ve ever seen on a race track.
“So yeah, I really don’t care what excuse he gave.”
Piastri’s comments to Sky Sports struck a similar tone:
“Obviously, getting taken out by a backmarker is never one of the things you think can go wrong. But I was proven wrong.
“Then obviously the gearbox [failure], so not the easiest of days,” Piastri explained.
“I was obviously p*****d off, I’ve been crashed into by Carlos. You know, in the moment I was hoping maybe they would not pit Lando, because of that incident – to at least give me the chance to stay in the lead.
“But I think that’s not very reasonable. I was more just very upset in the moment about what had happened.
“I think the timing of my pit-stop was fine. We wanted to beat Lewis, and that’s what we needed to do to do that.”
A tough day for Piastri
The 5-second time penalty awarded to Sainz for the incident will ultimately be of little consolation for Piastri. In what has been a difficult year for McLaren, the MCL40 showed its best performance of the season in Hungary.
In terms of pure pace, the car designed in Woking was the class of the field. Lando Norris made this clear when he gapped the field in his final stint.
Still, a combination of factors will leave Piastri bitter about today’s outcome. Perhaps most concerningly from a McLaren perspective, reliability again emerged as a major issue.
During the summer break, Andrea Stella’s team will work to identify and resolve these persistent reliability issues.
Should they get on top of these vulnerabilities, McLaren could have a platform to become a more consistent threat to Mercedes at the sharp end of the field.
