Oscar Piastri sheds light on McLaren's F1 Sunday morning meetings after team orders drama

Oscar Piastri has shed light on McLaren’s pre-race F1 discussions after they were engulfed in a team orders row at the Hungarian Grand Prix.

Piastri took the lead on the opening lap at the Hungaroring ahead of McLaren teammate Lando Norris.

However, things were made complicated for the Woking outfit after they stopped Norris first for the second round of stops.

McLaren were vocal over team radio in instructing Norris to switch positions, but he initially refused, before relinquishing the lead in the closing laps.

Norris’ race engineer, Will Joseph, made reference to the Sunday morning meetings when attempting to get his driver to listen to the instructions.

Speaking after his maiden win, Piastri addressed the pre-race discussions.

“I had a lot of trust in the team and Lando,” he said. “Lando was fast at the end, that was clear. But the strategy that we went onto meant it was effectively an undercut from him.

“I think it was a fair decision to swap us back, at the end. We discussed a lot last night and this morning about how the race would look. We were free to race each other and to try to win the race, if we finished 1-2. That’s more or less what we did.

“A lot of really good planning and open discussions allows us to have trust and respect for each other, and not get into situations.”

On the other side of the McLaren garage, Norris was understandably frustrated by the situation and the lost points to Max Verstappen in the championship.

Piastri conceded Norris’ annoyance was “only natural”.

“In Lando’s position, I could understand. It’s only natural,” he added. “From my point of view, I did all the right things until the last pitstop. The only reason we pitted the cars in the way that we did was to cover off different people. It meant he undercut me.

“Of course, it’s never the easiest thing to work out. But we’re all respectful enough to see the reasons why.”

It was Piastri’s first F1 victory, and McLaren’s first 1-2 since Monza 2021.

Reflecting on his achievement, he added: “I got a good start. Just good enough that I could get my nose into Turn 1.

“It was strong racing but fair. That really set me up for the rest of the race. That’s what won it for me today. We did a lot of things right. For me, still a lot of things to work on for the future.

“As a team we managed it pretty well. I’m very happy with my first win.”