Lando Norris agonised over whether to hand victory in the Hungarian Grand Prix back to team-mate Oscar Piastri but said it was the “fair” and “honest” thing to do.
The Briton spent 20 laps debating the move with his team, as the drivers raced to McLaren's first one-two for nearly three years, but said that he was “always quite confident” he was going to do it.
“I didn't deserve to win the race,” Norris said. “Simple as that. The fact I was in that position was incorrect.
“If Oscar's led the whole race, it's not fair, and I don't think that's how it should work, that he should just let me pass for me to win because I'm fighting for a championship.
“I didn't give up the race win. I lost it off the line.” Both drivers admitted after the race that McLaren had made their lives harder than would be ideal.
Norris was ahead of Piastri – for whom this was a maiden win – only because the team had chosen to make the Briton's second and final pit stop early to protect against Lewis Hamilton's Mercedes, who had recently made his own and fitted fresh tyres.
McLaren were cautious in the timing – excessively so, some said – because Norris still had five seconds to play with. But team principal Andrea Stella said he preferred to reduce the impact of a potential delay at a pit stop and handle the situation within the team than risk losing track position.
The decision to pit Norris first from just over a second behind inevitably – because of the extra pace provided by fresh tyres – put Norris ahead of Piastri when the Australian made his own final stop a couple of laps later. And the situation did indeed appear to take some handling.
Time and again, Norris' engineer Will Joseph went on the radio to urge the Briton to follow instructions; time and again Norris pushed back, or sometimes did not respond at all. At one point, Joseph had to say: “Radio check” to ensure Norris was getting the messages. “Loud and clear,” came the reply.
Why did he not reassure the team, Norris was asked.
“I don't need to,” he said. “I know what I'm going to do and not going to do. Of course I'm going to question and challenge it. And that's what I did.
“I was going to wait until the last corner, last lap. But they said if there was a safety car all of a sudden, then I couldn't let Oscar go through and it would have made me look like a bit of an idiot and I was like, fair point, so I let him go two laps to go.
“You can make of it what you will, of what you hear and what you think you know, but I know I was always going to give it back unless they changed their mind and they didn't, so all good.”
Is Norris a title contender?
The result – combined with a difficult race for championship leader Max Verstappen, who collided with Lewis Hamilton's Mercedes and finished fifth – allowed Norris to close his deficit in the drivers' championship to the Dutchman to 76 points. McLaren are now just 51 points behind Red Bull in the constructors' with 11 races to go.
And Norris admitted it was the championship that had made him doubt his decision most.
“It's always going to go through your mind,” he said. “You have to be selfish in this sport at times. That's priority number one – to think of yourself.
“I'm also a team player. My mind was going pretty crazy at the time. I know what we've done in the past. Oscar's helped me plenty of times. But this isn't that. I was put into a position and we were undoing it.
“I know a lot of people are going to say the gap between me and Max is pretty big but if Red Bull and Max make the mistakes they did today and we continue to improve and have weekends like this, we can turn it around.
“It is still optimistic and a big goal to say I can close 70 points in half a season, and seven points I give away… it crosses your mind. So it was not easy.
“But I also understood the situation I was in and I was quite confident that by the last lap I would have done it.”
A non-negotiable for McLaren
Before the race, it looked like Norris' to lose. He had started on pole, on the racing line, and normally the drivers on the inside make slower starts at the Hungaroring because of the lack of grip off line.
But Norris' start was not good, and Piastri got alongside him as they went three-wide into the first corner with Verstappen. Norris briefly dropped behind Verstappen – who was ordered to give the place back because he had gained it by going off the track.
Once back in second place, on a track where overtaking is difficult – partly because of the circuit's twisty nature and partly because of the hot weather that means cars behind others overheat their tyres even more than normal – Norris was never going to pass a car from the same team with such similar pace.
“I boxed first and naturally you will always undercut. The team gave me this position and I gave it back, nothing more than that,” he said.
“Something we always talk about before every race is our trust in one another, our honesty we have as a group.
“I think that's something that's allowed us to catch others so quickly, to perform and outperform others so quickly to develop the car quicker.” Despite Norris' arguments with the pit wall, team principal Stella, who has masterminded McLaren's revival over the past 18 months, said he had no doubts his driver would do what was asked.
“I know Lando enough,” Stella said. “Sometimes you have to communicate to all the sides that exist inside a race driver.
“But I know him well enough to know that inside Lando we have a race driver and a team player. These two elements came along perfectly today to generate what was the right thing to do for the team, for Oscar and Lando.
“I know for the media and watching on TV this becomes a story. But for us internally this becomes part of the way we go racing, and that's why we invest so much in culture, values and mindset.
“We want to be able to manage the situation if we want to be in the championship with Lando, Oscar and McLaren.” Stella is an intelligent and eloquent man, but also a tough one. A driver who did not accede to such a policy, he said, could find somewhere else to race.
“Interests of the team come first,” Stella said. “If you mess up on this matter, you cannot be part of the McLaren F1 team. That's the principle.” But he said he had no concerns Norris would eventually do what was right.
Asked why it had taken Norris so long, Stella replied: “Because he’s a race driver. Mention me a race driver who would have not done [the same thing].
“Actually you can mention to me many who would have not done it until lap 70, and I would be extremely concerned in that case if Lando had not demonstrated I am a race driver because that's the ethos you need to fight hard with Max Verstappen, Lewis Hamilton and more and Oscar himself.
“It is entertaining to talk about the controversial aspects, but it would be unfair not to talk about the resolution which happened according to our way of going racing.”
A dream comes true
It was hard to argue with the idea Piastri deserved to win – a result that has looked only a matter of time since he made his debut with McLaren last year.
The Australian led the race confidently after winning the start. The only blot on his copybook was an off at Turn 11 that allowed Norris to get back in range before that crucial final stop. It was not his first F1 win – he won the sprint in Qatar last year – but it was his first grand prix victory. It will surely not be the last.
“An incredible moment that I've been dreaming of for a very long time,” Piastri said. “My first dream in my career was reaching F1. The second one is winning a race.
“I'm very, very happy and proud and not just of myself, but everybody that's helped me get to this position.
“Going back to my family, firstly, of course. You know, it took a lot of big decisions at a young age to chase the F1 dream.
“It's very difficult to become an F1 driver by staying in Australia, so it meant some big decisions early in life. And just very, very proud that those decisions have paid off and we've managed to make it worth it.”
— CutC by bbc.com
