Oscar Piastri has lost two race wins to Lando Norris purely on luck! First, Silverstone, and second was today in Hungary.
We predicted this "race strategy situation" in our race preview. The second McLaren (Norris, in this case) on the road would get the favoured tyre strategy in the race while the first McLaren (Piastri, in this case) would go chase Charles Leclerc for the race win.
Was McLaren fair with their drivers who are the only two contenders for the Drivers' Championship in 2025? Did McLaren favour one driver or the other in the 2025 Hungarian Grand Prix? Or did they maximise the team's result of a 1-2 finish irrespective of which driver finished first? And finally, was Norris a lucky winner of the Hungarian Grand Prix, a race where was the "slower" of the two McLarens and was in fact overtaken by two other cars (George Russell & Fernando Alonso) at the race start? Btw, Norris was very lucky that Alonso chose to not battle with him when the DRS was enabled.
Why?
Alonso, who was also on the one-stop, was the thorn in everyone else's race strategy. He executed a "Monaco-style" strategy at the Hungaroring (also known as "Monaco without the walls"). He bunched up the field and messed up tyre strategy for the other midfielders. Fair play to Aston Martin & Alonso who scored the team's best result of the season and maximised their points to jump two spots in the Constructors' Championship.
Finally, Charles Leclerc revealed that the mysterious issue that he faced in the race wasn't the "front wing" adjustment at his pit stop, but in fact, an issue with his chassis that compromised his pace. Leclerc continued to not add to his already embarrassing "pole to win" conversion rate in Formula 1. Lewis Hamilton, on the other hand, had another race to forget. He was one of those who was done in by Alonso's "slow pace" to finish 5th strategy.
Sauber's Gabriel Bortoleto impressed throughout the weekend and was the "Driver of the Day". As the summer break looms upon us, the question is whether Lando Norris will be comfortable knowing that he's brought the gap down to just 9 points, or whether he will know at the back of his head that Oscar Piastri would've actually been further ahead in the title battle if he was a tad bit luckier in two races - Silverstone and Hungary.
Soumil Arora and Kunal Shah discuss the 2025 Hungarian Grand Prix and how it all played out in strategy.
#F1 #F12025 #HungarianGP
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