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F1 Hungary Grand Prix Even with team directives, Norris still has a way to win races

F1 Hungary Grand Prix Even with team directives, Norris still has a way to win races

The McLaren MCL38 was undoubtedly the fastest car on the Hengroonen circuit, and with the two drivers having better control of the rear-wheel degradation, it was hard to bring back one or the other, but the team's instructions in the race ruined a perfect weekend.

F1 Hungary Grand Prix Even with team directives, Norris still has a way to win races

Eventually, Norris had to take direct orders from team principal Stella to return the position to Piastri, but he had the smarter way to take the lead again, in fact, on lap 55, when his track engineer Ver Josef told him in TR to let him control the lap time and swap positions with his teammates at the right time, when Norris should react quickly and return the position to Piastri instead of opening up on the track.

F1 Hungary Grand Prix Even with team directives, Norris still has a way to win races

Not only did this allow him to burn out his tyres faster, but as the number of laps decreased, he had less room to turn things around in the closing stages of the race.

F1 Hungary Grand Prix Even with team directives, Norris still has a way to win races

At 58 laps into the race, Norris already had a 3.3-second advantage over Piastri, and he chose to increase his lap time by one second, and after three laps his teammates would be chasing him, and during those three laps he had to do two things: first, protect the tyres as much as possible, and second, recharge the battery as much as possible.

F1 Hungary Grand Prix Even with team directives, Norris still has a way to win races

If he cedes his position to his team-mate on lap 62, Norris, who is back in second, will have a clear advantage in tyre and battery power, and Norris clearly has the advantage in lap time between the two at the time, while Piastri has already experienced significant tyre degradation from lap 62 onwards, and if Norris can keep the gap between him and his team-mate within a second, he still has a good chance of overtaking his team-mate before Turn 1.

F1 Hungary Grand Prix Even with team directives, Norris still has a way to win races

But he made the worst decision of the race, which was to give up his lead of more than five seconds on lap 68 before Turn 1. As a result, Piastri's tyres were not affected in the slightest, and on the other hand, there were only two laps left, in which Norris clearly did not have enough time to achieve another overtake. In other words, he should have given the advantage lap by lap earlier with better tyre protection and left enough laps for a counter-attack in the final stages of the race.

F1 Hungary Grand Prix Even with team directives, Norris still has a way to win races

Of course, there would obviously be opposition from the team, as Verjösef had already told him that they would finish in the same position as they returned their position, but that didn't mean it was meant by the team's top leadership, in other words, if Norris returned his position to his team-mates and then overtook them on the track, it would be perfectly understandable, and no one would say anything about it.

It's rare to think so calmly in a high-tension game, but for the young Norris, it's clearly a lesson in his game experience, and the next time he encounters it, he might be smarter.

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