McLaren reveal stance after heart-in-mouth Lando Norris v Oscar Piastri near-miss

McLaren felt the late battle between Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri at the Hungarian Grand Prix was “firm” but “fair racing”.

Lando Norris capitalised on a one-stop strategy to beat his two-stopping teammate Piastri to an important victory in Hungary and reduce his deficit in the championship to nine points heading into F1’s summer break.

The pair ran nose-to-tail in the closing laps as Piastri used fresh tyres to hunt down the Australian. During a late attack at Turn 1 on the penultimate lap, Piastri locked up and had to avoid hitting Piastri.

But McLaren had no issue with the incident as they continue to allow their drivers to be free to race and give both equal opportunities in their respective world championship quests.

"When you have two great drivers like Lando and Oscar who race for a victory in a Formula 1 grand prix and race for the drivers' championship, it's always going to be very close," McLaren team principal Andrea Stella told media including Crash.net.

"But that was firm racing, it was fair racing at the same time. It was definitely within our principles.

“We had a bit of a lock-up with Oscar but at the same time Lando left some space because he knew that Oscar would have been on the limit of braking."

McLaren did not intend strategy that cost Piastri win

Stella insisted McLaren originally planned for both drivers to run an optimal two-stop strategy because they didn’t believe a one-stop would be possible.

The race-winning strategy for Norris only came about after he dropped two places on the opening lap following a bad start from third.

"When we extended, leaving Lando out, we didn't think that the one-stop would have been possible,” Stella explained.

"But credit to Lando, he managed to put together some very strong sectors and laptimes with tyres that were relatively used.

"So we somehow convinced ourselves that the one-stop was starting to get in the game as we progressed in the first stint.

"It wasn't like entering the race with a one or a two stop and we would have picked.

"We thought that the two-stop would be the dominant strategy today.”

Stella added: “We wanted to give a first go at trying to pass Leclerc.

"We knew that there would be a second go later in the race and at the time the one-stop for Lando was outside of any cards.

"It was an option from a strategic point of view that we discovered while we were staying out with Lando and we saw that he was in a condition to put together some competitive laptimes.”

Stella also explained the thinking behind McLaren's decision to pit Oscar Piastri for a second time, which the team knew would cost him track position to Norris.

"We wanted to ensure that thinking about Leclerc we were not deviating too much off an optimal two-stop because that would have been unfair to Oscar in relation to his competition with Lando,” Stella said.

"And we also checked with Oscar what his preference was and said if he wanted to have an opportunity to win the race, we thought that with enough tyre delta to Leclerc, Oscar would have had a chance anyhow.

"So the race unfolded pretty much as we hoped it would unfold in terms of tyre behaviour, which means tyres that lasted enough for a one-stop when we decided to keep Lando out, but also in the second stint, tyres and car pass that would have allowed Oscar to pass Leclerc.

"Actually the two strategies proved to be quite equivalent."