When will McLaren realise that at this moment, they have in Lando Norris their best chance of winning the drivers’ championship since Lewis Hamilton in 2008? Hamilton was 23 years old then. He is 39 now. It was that long ago.
And when will Lando believe it himself, and deliver on the possibility? Based on the evidence of Sunday’s gripping Hungarian Grand Prix this juiciest of carrots has not sufficiently infiltrated the psyche of either man or team.
It seems McLaren are instead focused on the constructors’ championship, the winning of which would admittedly be a major achievement. As well as the prestige, it comes with top-rank prize money of some £110million, and consequently bumper bonuses for the staff.
But even this laurel – and new kitchens all round Woking! – is not motor racing’s supreme prize in the wider estimation. That is the drivers’ crown.
Which brings us to why McLaren did not act more ruthlessly and let Norris cross the line first in Budapest. He was, anyway, leading and moving away to a margin of more than five seconds in the later stages of the race, albeit his track position was established by the earlier timing of his second pit stop, which allowed him to jump team-mate Oscar Piastri.
McLaren must bite the bullet and make it clear that Lando Norris is their No 1 driver
Norris was told to allow team-mate Piastri to pass him to win the Hungarian Grand Prix
Had McLaren not issued the order to Norris to let Piastri pass they would have scored the same number of points – 43 – and finished with an identical result: a brilliant one-two, their first for three years. So, they would have lost nothing in the constructors’ standings, in any case.
But they should have supported the British driver because he started the day way closer to championship leader Max Verstappen than anyone else. He lay 84 points back; Piastri, fifth in the table, was 131 off.
Sure, Norris faces a major task in trying to beat the near-indestructible Verstappen, the driver of his era. But if that is hard work for Norris from closer quarters, what chance has Piastri from the foothills of Everest?
The post-race maths left Verstappen, who finished fifth, and in a potty-mouthed funk, 76 points clear rather than the 69 he would have been had McLaren not radioed their instruction to swap places.
I know Piastri had established a possible moral hold on the win by making a better start than pole-man Norris from second on the grid (although he later ran off track). I also realise he was chasing the first Formula One grand prix victory of his life.
But had McLaren possessed a more imaginative understanding of Norris’s slender but alive prospect of overhauling Verstappen, it would have been spelt out to Piastri in advance that his role was to support his brother driver.
As Max Verstappen’s rattled demeanour demonstrated this weekend, cracks are appearing
Verstappen’s chinks of vulnerability need exploiting and Norris must be able to exert pressure
The Australian, at 23, is the junior partner, in his 35th race, to Norris, a venerable 24, in his 117th.
The nature of the season offers further reason to resort to preferential treatment. Verstappen romped away at the start of it and provided every invitation for a Sunday afternoon snooze.
But, as his rattled demeanour demonstrated this weekend, cracks are appearing, a consequence in part of the Christian Horner scandal that rocked Red Bull a few months ago. Those chinks of vulnerability need exploiting, and that means the Dutchman’s closest pursuer being allowed to exert the utmost pressure.
Extra points add up, and with 11 rounds remaining there is still time for the gradual accumulation to tell.
McLaren have traditionally granted their two drivers equal billing. It is a laudable intent and can engender the sort of excitement produced in Budapest. But the policy has its inherent dangers. It most recently cost Hamilton – or his team-mate Fernando Alonso – the title in 2007. Kimi Raikkonen instead won for Ferrari by a point from both McLaren men as they split their points.
Unquestionably, the most direct route to winning the drivers’ championship is by backing a clear No 1. That was the Ferrari way, and never more so than in the Michael Schumacher era, when the policy bordered on the absurdly partial.
Eddie Irvine, Rubens Barrichello and Felipe Massa all doffed their crash helmets to the great German. And the procedure persisted beyond that era. Most noticeably when Massa was told, ‘Fernando (Alonso, the Scuderia’s new star man) is faster,’ in the 2010 season at Hockenheim. That was a blatant switcheroo.
McLaren have traditionally granted their two drivers equal billing but the policy has its dangers
It’s time for Norris and his team to cut out self-defeating mistakes and back themselves
As for Norris, it is not harsh to say that if his world championship chance is to ripen, he must cut out self-defeating mistakes. While no proven Schumacher, he is in the form of his life in a McLaren that is the best car on the grid (for which huge credit is due to Zak Brown’s team). Lando needs to find weapons-grade resilience, plus a killer instinct the finest of racers demonstrate in cold blood.
Should he have disobeyed team orders on Sunday? No. He was right to play it fair. But that doesn’t mean he should have been put in – or indeed put himself in – that position. It’s time for him and McLaren to back themselves all the way.