McLaren must feel a sense of “regret” for the saga of Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri team orders in Hungary.

That’s according to Jos Verstappen, the former Formula 1 driver and father of Max Verstappen, who fought and defeated McLaren’s Lando Norris to win his fourth consecutive world championship in F1 2024.

Max Verstappen ‘reportedly had problems’ with McLaren request

Additional reporting by Thomas Maher

Team orders to McLaren became a key topic of debate as the fight for the title of not only the constructors, but also the drivers, emerged with the McLaren taking over from Red Bull’s RB20 as the lead car on the grid following the demise of the Red Bull domination.

Ultimately, a key moment occurred in Hungary where, after undermining teammate Oscar Piastri with McLaren moving to defend the one-two, Norris was asked to let Piastri take the lead again.

A back-and-forth period followed before Norris eventually bowed out, allowing Piastri to take victory, while Verstappen took the title later in the year, sealing the deal in Las Vegas at two final rounds, his final margin over Norris being 63 points. .

And Jos thinks McLaren’s F1 2024 review will include regrets regarding the Hungarian GP.

“They must have regretted it later,” Jos said of the orders from the McLaren Budapest team in an interview with Formula 1.

“But it’s difficult to say anything about it, because we don’t know what’s going on in this team, what the contracts look like and what deals have been made.”

What Jos knows is that Max may not have been able to bring himself to follow through on such a request.

“But if I translate it to Max, I think he would have had a hard time letting his teammate through,” Jos continued. “But everyone is different and must react in the way that suits them.”

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Norris chose a different twist to his 2024 F1 title battle with Verstappen, namely the Mexican Grand Prix, where Verstappen received a 10-second penalty for forcing Norris off the track and an additional 10 seconds for leaving the track. track and took the advantage. as the protagonists of the title went into battle.

There, Norris said he learned that Verstappen was not always the perfect driver.

When asked after his victory in the Abu Dhabi season finale if it boosted his confidence ahead of a potential 2025 F1 title challenge, Norris told media, including PlanetF1.com : “Honestly, those are probably the hardest times, which are the ones that you learn the most, so what people say is pretty true.

“Those tougher moments, my battles with Max, that sort of thing, some other instances throughout the season.

“If I go back to Austria and Silverstone, there are just a few along the way and some have different reasons, but none of them are necessarily the ones that make me doubt myself more.

“This season was my best season from a personal performance point of view, was it good enough? That probably wasn’t the case, no.

“But when you look at my own performance, and my qualifying performance, for example, it was almost twice as good as what I was last year – especially in comparison to the other guys in exactly the same car.

“Obviously I lost a few points, and there were maybe three starts this year that sometimes caused me to lose a position or two – but they were often positions reserved for Max.

“None of them, when I look back, made me feel like I didn’t have what it takes.

“You know, those only times happened where it was directly against Max. You know, facing Max in any state will always be tricky, and no one will have fun facing Max.

“I think Mexico was a turning point when it was proven that not everything they did was perfect.

“I think if we all go back to Austin and come back to turn 12, (the) majority of almost everyone on the grid, as drivers and also externally, disagreed with the fact that I ‘ve received a penalty either we both shouldn’t have had one, or we should have both had one.

“So I think it’s little instances along the way, but definitely from a pace standpoint, not doubting myself this year, and I think I’ve definitely given myself more confidence.

“It was more of a head-to-head fight with one of the best in the world. And the thing is, what you don’t see from the outside are some of those moments where, if I had done certain things, we would have crashed.

“People on the outside have no idea what it takes, and those moments where you accept losing a battle, and you do, and it was because of where we were during the first six or seven races of the year.

“We lost too many points and I was in a position where I couldn’t win as much as I needed and wanted, but I’m not using any of those points as excuses.

“I say I didn’t have what it took this season to fight against Max and deliver what I needed.

“But it definitely gave me the feeling of ‘okay, if I improve a little bit here, a little bit here,’ for the first time I have confidence in saying that I definitely have what it’s necessary.”

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