McLaren team principal Andrea Stella has stood by the tactical choices his outfit made during the Hungarian Grand Prix, despite Oscar Piastri’s initial criticism after he fell behind teammate Lando Norris. Piastri had qualified third on the grid and, after a strong start that saw him pass Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc and pole‑sitter Norris in the opening corners, he emerged from the first lap in the lead. The team’s early plan was to give the Australian, who was ahead on track, priority in the pit‑stop sequence. However, the arrival of Lewis Hamilton’s Ferrari in the second round of stops forced McLaren to react quickly.
Piastri pitted to preserve his track position relative to Hamilton, but the stop allowed Norris, who was running on fresher tyres and enjoying a superior pace, to close the gap. An unfortunate incident further complicated matters when Piastri made contact with back‑marker Carlos Sainz’s Williams, resulting in a penalty for the Spaniard and ending Piastri’s race due to a gearbox failure while he was running in second place. In the immediate aftermath of the collision, Piastri vented his frustration over the team radio, then launched another tirade when Norris re‑joined the race ahead of him.
Stella later explained the reasoning behind the pit‑stop timing: "If you look at the race trace, you will see that when Hamilton pits, he is in a position to undercut the two McLarens, so we needed to respond. Because if that was the right way to take the cars to victory, we needed to have a McLaren in a position of leading that way ahead of Hamilton." Stella continued, "So it was either Oscar or Lando. Oscar was in the lead, and we thought that he was the right car to stop for that.
And then for Lando, this opened up a different strategy. It’s not that we were favouring one driver over the other; we were forced to act to prevent Ferrari from taking the race lead." He added that the pace differential played a crucial role: "Lando on used tyres was not much slower than the cars on fresh tyres, and that is where he seized the victory today.
It was a win on pace, and Lando had the opportunity to use it, not because the team engineered it, but because we needed to cover Hamilton." Later, Piastri acknowledged that the timing of the stops was reasonable and admitted his request to delay Norris’s stop after the Sainz incident was "not very reasonable." He told Sky Sports F1: "I was hit by Carlos and, 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 just very upset at the time.
The timing of my pit stop was fine; we wanted to beat Lewis and that’s what we needed to do." Before the gearbox failure, Norris had been pressing the pit wall, insisting he was faster than his teammate and urging the engineers to let him pit first. Stella defended the decision to stick with the original plan, saying the pit wall constantly evaluates options from multiple angles: "We look at how to achieve a victory, how to maximise points for the team, and how to stay consistent with our racing philosophy.
Oscar earned the lead fairly in the first corners, so he deserved a chance to fight for the win. In other circuits Lando might have overtaken Oscar, but here a large pace advantage was required." Stella praised both drivers for embracing the team’s approach, noting that the race was executed well from a strategic standpoint and that the outcome would not have been possible without two drivers who support the team’s methodology. Even after retracting his criticism of McLaren, Piastri remained angry with Sainz for the collision. He later told reporters, "I knew there were blue flags, but there were blue flags on all the marshal signals, I was right behind him for a sector.
I couldn’t believe what happened. Getting hit by a lapped car is never something you expect, and today it happened, so I don’t really care if he didn’t see me.
The fact that he didn’t and no one told him, or there was a lack of complete awareness, is unacceptable." Sainz defended his actions post‑race, citing confusion over blue‑flag signals and a battle with Fernando Alonso for position as mitigating factors. He also suggested that Piastri could have been more cautious given the high stakes of a race‑win battle. Piastri responded sharply, "He’s quite critical of others, and others have given him some stick before for being frustrating on‑track.
When you do something like that, maybe you should look in the mirror a bit." The Formula 1 calendar will resume after the summer break with the Dutch Grand Prix at Zandvoort from 21‑23 August, all sessions to be broadcast live on Sky Sports F1. The series continues to attract intense scrutiny over team strategies, driver conduct, and the ever‑present quest for the fastest lap and the most points.