McLaren were accused of making an “unfair” decision on Sunday during the Hungarian Grand Prix, after the Woking-based team favoured Lando Norris over Oscar Piastri.
The McLaren drivers started the race at the Hungaroring in third and fourth respectively; however, it was Piastri who made the better getaway.
Piastri remarkably overtook Norris and Lewis Hamilton at the opening corner of the race, promoting the Australian to second in the early stages.
The rookie looked comfortable in second; albeit, several seconds behind eventual winner Max Verstappen.
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Piastri sat in second ahead of Norris in third, whilst Hamilton occupied fourth.
However, Hamilton pitting before both McLaren drivers left the British team with a decision to make, which ultimately favoured Norris.
To protect Norris from the undercut, the team pitted the 23-year-old before Piastri, something which kept the British driver ahead of Hamilton.
When Piastri pitted a lap later though, he was overtaken by his team-mate, who’d been able to undercut him.
Sky Sports F1 commentator David Croft labelled the team’s preference of Norris over Piastri as a “little unfair”, whilst ex-F1 driver turned pundit Martin Brundle admitted that the decision would’ve “concerned” his management team.
Piastri’s manager is actually ex-F1 driver Mark Webber, who Brundle is convinced wouldn’t have been happy to see McLaren sacrifice Piastri’s position.
The young driver went on to be overtaken by Sergio Perez and Hamilton, leaving him to finish the race in fifth.
Had he been pitted before Norris at the first round of pit-stops though, then the Australian would’ve perhaps claimed a maiden podium.
Whilst Piastri had to settle for fifth, Norris claimed a second consecutive P2 finish.
McLaren CEO Zak Brown was questioned about the team’s pit strategy after the race, where he revealed that the decision to pit Norris first was due to believing that it was the “best strategy for the team”.
“There was some conversation on the radio,” Brown explained to the media, as reported by PlanetF1.com.
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“We thought that was the best strategy for the team.
“We were considering doing something later in the race, but we were on the… what was the best strategy for the team at the time. We wanted to cover Lewis, Lewis came out and it looked like they were gonna make a stop.
“We wanted to kind of see how the pace settled in on the new tyres, so it was something that we spoke about on pitwall and said ‘let’s see where we are like five [laps] from the end and make a decision’.”