McLaren continues to have Landororis and Oscar Piastri split their racing strategy at the Dutch Grand Prix, despite the possibility of affecting the Formula 1 title battle.
Norris scored an unlikely victory in the Hungarian Ligue Rampuri after switching to a one-stop strategy while running outside the podium in fourth place.
Piastri got faster at the end of the race with fresh tires, but the tight, twisted nature of the hangar rolling F1 truck meant he couldn’t find a way to pass Norris, leaving him adrifted second.
The result is a strengthening title fight between the McLaren duo, slashing points in Piastri and a summer break heading towards nine.
Walking-based teams have always argued that Norris and Piastri could compete freely in 2025 under certain conditions, but the Hungarian Grand Prix has exposed the unintended consequences of that approach.
Norris revealed that McLaren had an internal discussion after Budapest, but concluded that there is no need to change the “papaya rules” that govern the way drivers compete against each other.
“At that moment, things haven’t really changed,” he said on Zandvoort.
“Of course there was discussion. There was reviews of things all season. Every race, we tweak things and understand them well as a team. That happens every time. It happened after Budapest.
“There are no major changes, but there are still constructors (champions) to win, which will be prioritized at this point.”
Norris explained that he was forced to switch between the middle of the race after stopping behind Mercedes rival George Russell, but he couldn’t expect a one-stop strategy to lead him to victory.
“Budapest was a bit of an outlier. My decision to go to a one-stop was more (out of the situation),” he said.
“If I put it in the box, after all the people in front of me have been boxed, then I put it in the box, just do something different, and do anything different, then you have to be quite anxious. You don’t even have to be smart to do something different.
“So it was about giving George a chance to get ahead of him and move ahead at that point, not necessarily to win the race at that point.
“I hadn’t made that decision at the time.
“Maybe it wasn’t the perfect harmonious race between us as a team, because it didn’t fall exactly where we would normally go, but at the same time it was just an example of what can happen in a race from time to time.
“I think both of us want things to not be overly straightened, and we’re not just unable to race to prove who can do better work, as individuals.”
Oscar Piastry on McLaren’s Strategic Division
Piastri also confirmed that both he and Norris were free to choose different strategies during the race.
However, he also made it clear that McLaren will give productive talks on various scenarios to make it as fair as possible between the two.
“We’ve talked about it ever since,” he told media, including crush.net. “In the end, there is a race situation, the second car on the team’s track, and it doesn’t even have to be the second car on the team.
“You’re much less to lose because it’s just like the last car on a train or the last car in a group. So that’s why such an aspect is always there.
“It was a very productive discussion, and there was a debate about whether there was something we could do for ourselves differently.
“If that’s what we want, we’re still free to choose alternative strategies, but yes, there was definitely some debate about how we could work on it, especially when you’re in a championship position, trying to cover different strategies clearly.”