Brown relief at skipping ‘biting nails’ moment with Piastri Norris furore

McLaren CEO Zak Brown has expressed his relief at the fact Lando Norris did not fight Oscar Piastri for victory in Hungary. 

In Budapest, at the final round of pit-stops, McLaren pitted second-placed Norris ahead of leader Piastri to cover off Lewis Hamilton behind.

This allowed Norris to undercut Piastri, with the team asking Norris to let the Australian reassume the lead over multiple laps, which he eventually did on lap 68 of 70.

Norris has since apologised for overshadowing Piastri’s maiden win with the drama, with one thought being that he could have let Piastri through immediately and then had 20 or so laps with which to attack Piastri on-track. 

Brown, who was not in Hungary and at the IndyCar race on the streets of Toronto instead, has revealed how that action prevented him from “biting my nails.”

“I know Lando very well, so I had no doubt that he was going to move over,” Brown told Sky Sports F1. 

“I think we maybe left it a bit too long because they were free to race, and had he made that change of position right away, there were 20-21 laps of racing still to go. 

“Part of me is actually happy they didn’t race because that would have been 20-21 laps of biting my nails, which I tend to do anyway. 

“But it all worked out in the end, there were some learnings there, maybe some better communications amongst us to be a little bit clearer, but it all worked out in the end.”

‘Have a crack at it’

Had Norris allowed Piastri through earlier on, Brown confirmed that the pit-wall would not have immediately called off the fight and allowed the Briton a fair shot at trying to pass Piastri on-track.

“Oh no, definitely not, I think we would have swapped right away and then let him have a go,” Brown replied when that question was put to him.

“I don’t think Lando thinks he would have beaten Oscar, Oscar was absolutely flying and the undercut presented a big gap and had we pitted Oscar first, he would have come out six or seven seconds ahead.

“But we wanted to make sure we had Lewis covered, it turned out we did so I don’t think he needed to do it right away. 

“We certainly don’t want them going down to the last lap battling, but we would have let him have a crack at it.”