McLaren “outrageous” Norris radio treatment says F1 driver. The 2024 Formula One season is hotting up as a number of senior paddock individuals believe the fight for the championships are back on after early season form which suggested Red Bull Racing would run away with the honours as they did last year.

McLaren have been knocking at the door since Lando Norris won in Miami, with the British driver unfortunate not to have five victories this year already, rather than just the one claimed in Florida.

Yet the second most historic of F1 teams has not been at the sharp end for the best part of a decade and recent near misses and chaos in Hungary suggest they not quite ready to take the mantle from the world champions.

 

 

 

McLaren feared repeat of Silverstone

At the British Grand Prix the rains came as Norris was leading the race with his team mate one place further back. Lando was pitted for intermediate rain tyres on lap 27 and returned in P2. Piastri however was not double stacked for his wet tyres and the extra lap on the slippery slicks cost the Australian four places overall.

Further strategy dithering was to come as the team checked with Norris his preferred tyre choice for the final stint. Hamilton had fitted soft tyres having no new mediums left and so Norris elected to follow suit despite having a new set of the medium tyres in hand.

This proved a disastrous strategy as Red Bull had fitted Max Verstappen with the harder tyre which proved better in the closing stages of the race, Norris was eventually overtaken by Max in the closing stages as his used reds almost fell off the cliff.

And so to Hungary. The team locked out the front row with Lando on pole position. Yet a poor start from the British driver allowed his team mate the side line into turn one leaving a gap for Verstappen around the outside. 

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Focus on Hamilton pointless

Max was forced to hand the place back to Norris as the stewards investigated him for “leaving the track and gaining an advantage” which left the McLaren duo 1-2 in favour of Piastri.

The team was unduly concerned about Hamilton undercutting Norris at the final round of pit stops and so gave hi the first tyre change ahead of his team mate. Piastri then did two more laps before making his final stop and in the meantime, Norris had nailed his outlap and the one that followed giving him a two second lead.

Hamilton would have finished some 20 seconds behind Norris had he won the race and should not have been a concern for the team. Oscar Piastri then made a mistake catching the gravel at turn 11 which lost him a couple of seconds as the call came in for the drivers to swap places.

Norris engineer, Will Joseph politely requested over team radio for the British driver to  “reestablished the order at your convenience.” This was the beginning of a sequence of embarrassing exchanges between Lando and the team as the debate rumbled on over whether Norris should retain the lead as he was best placed to challenge Verstappen in the champion ship.

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McLaren appear to dither

After several laps of silence the team tried a different approach suggesting to Norris he was eating his tyres up too quickly as the gap to Oscar extended to over five seconds. Messages stated he was “using the tyres too much” and that the team’s director of engineering, Hiroshi Imai, was “stressed about the tyres.”

The team appeared to change tack telling Piastri on lap 51 he had to close the gap to Norris before the switch of positions could take place. “Okay Oscar, once you get to Lando we will swap the position. But we want to avoid Lando having to give up a lot of race time,” came the radio call.

Yet clearly quicker in the last spin of the racer, Norris continued to extend his lead until Will Joseph gave him a schoolboy lecture, reminding him of the Sunday morning briefings.

“Okay Lando, 10 laps to go. We think both cars are using tyres too much. Just remember every Sunday morning meeting we have,” said Joseph over the radio. Norris replied: “Yep, tell him to catch up then please.”

Lando Norris needs to “grow some balls”

 

 

 

Norris lectured like a child

Norris continued to protest that he was the leading McLaren driver in chase of Verstappen in the championship, then on lap 66 Joseph tried another tack: “Lando there are five laps to go. The way to win a championship is not by yourself. You’re going to need Oscar and you’re going to need the team.”

Eventually Norris slowed significantly handing the lead of the race to his team mate, but the entire unedifying radio saga had played out for almost 20 laps.

Speaking on the Lovecars on the grid podcast, Former F1 driver Tiff Needell now calls out McLaren for their vague instructions and at times silly radio messages. 

“Some of the comments from the pits, he [Lando’s engineer] was talking to Norris like a schoolboy,” said Needell. “Don’t be naughty, remember Sunday mornings, you’ll need them in the future. He should’ve just said ‘Look Lando, give it away.’ Just be more straight up and not trying to word it.”

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Team damaged Lando’s title charge

Nico Rosberg likened the debate over who should win the race to his time at Mercedes when racing Lewis Hamilton. Yet the silver arrows developed a playbook tome which set out every conceivable scenario and how their drivers would react when encountering conflicts of interest while racing.

McLaren had done the usual, leading driver gets the first stop, conversation, but failed to allow for a scenario where mid race different decisions wold need to be made. Moments before Norris ultimately gave back the lead of the race, Verstappen collided with Hamilton and fell back another two places losing a further five points.

Norris could have gained 15 points on the world champion had he won the race, but was forced to settle for an 8 point deficit reduction and with 76 points between the rivals and just 11 races to go, it appears a tough ask for Lando to catch Verstappen unless more disastrous weekends for Red Bull continue.

Other senior F1 observers like Peter Windsor were incensed Norris didn’t refuse the team order and join the ranks of the greats like Sebastian Vettel and Fernando Alonso.

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Giving F1 victory away, “outrageous”

The former Ferrari boss stated: “Before Lando came in for that famous undercutting second stop, it was Oscar Piastri that was running wide, losing time and making mistakes, allowing Lando to get as near as he was and to get the lead in the pit stop.”

Norris had closed an almost five second deficit to Piastri to just over one second prior to the undercutting pit stop he made.

“So there were two things there: The mistakes Piastri was making under pressure from Lando and beyond that, there was the first corner. For that not to be mentioned by the team and for Lando to give away a Grand Prix win is absolutely outrageous.”

McLaren need to make slick up their amateurish trackside performance from Hungary as the Papaya liveried cars should be favourites for this weekend in Spa Francorchamps.

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Marko books London flight for showdown talks with Horner

Dr. Helmut Marko is a controversial figure in the Formula One paddock. The 81 yea old Austrian is frank with his opinions regardless of politics, something his position as friend of Red Bull founder Didi Mateschitz guaranteed him until recently.

Following the death of the Energy Empire’s billionaire founder, there have been rumblings in the Red Bull Racing parent company as a power struggle broke out between the Austrian minority shareholders and the Thai co-founder of the organisation.

When asked in China to explain the players involved in the power struggle, Marko declined to get involved stating: “That’s politics that I’m not concerned with at the moment,” he insisted. “It’s all about winning the next world title.”  READ MORE