Double season best: McLaren crew shine with Lando Norris in Hungary

As in Belgium a week ago, the threat of rain hung over the Hungaroring on Sunday. As it turned out, however, the really important strategic consideration concerned the number of pit stops. With just the one stop, McLaren and Lando Norris managed to outsmart all the other contenders for victory.

For Norris, the start of the race could not have gone worse. Having qualified in P3, the McLaren pilot fell behind George Russell’s Mercedes and Fernando Alonso’s Aston Martin. Out of necessity, the second-placed contestant in the world championship opted for a risky one-stop strategy to get past his teammate Oscar Piastri who was set to stop twice.

Norris’s fortunes were dependent on a perfect pit stop. On lap 31, the McLaren crew changed his worn mediums to new hard tires in 1.94 seconds, a super-fast time that easily secured the DHL Fastest Pit Stop. No pit crew has been speedier than McLaren this year. Norris returned to the track in fourth place and was able to wrap up the victory with a clear run.

The McLaren crew also did a perfect job for Oscar Piastri, completing yet another stop in 1.94 seconds. Thanks to the superbly executed one-stop strategy, Norris was able to prevail in the final battle against his teammate. “It’s the first race where doing a completely alternate strategy to most of the others and giving myself that opportunity actually worked out,” said a delighted Norris afterwards. “I didn’t have a lot of hope that I’d still be in a fight with Oscar till the very end, but that’s the way it turned out. So that was even better.”