The reason the McLaren team orders row in Budapest last weekend blew up to the extent that it did is because one of their two drivers is deemed to be in championship contention.
Lando Norris, who trails Red Bull’s Max Verstappen by 76 points in the drivers’ standings post-Hungary, had the lead of the grand prix after the last round of pit stops, but was asked to give it back to his team-mate Oscar Piastri, to whom he had lost out at the start.
The rights and wrongs of that call have been debated long and hard over the last 48 hours. Do McLaren need to be looking at the long game and picking a No 1 driver? Are they hard-nosed enough? Is Norris hard-nosed enough? Would alpha male drivers like Lewis Hamilton, Max Verstappen or Fernando Alonso have acquiesced in similar circ*mstances?
But at the end of the day, these questions all hinge on an underlying assumption – that Norris is actually in the title race. Is that really the case?
How realistic is it that Verstappen blows a 76-point lead with 11 races of the season remaining?
History would suggest it is extremely unlikely. Sebastian Vettel currently holds the record for biggest comeback in F1 history, overturning a 39-point deficit with seven races remaining to beat Alonso to the title in 2012. Norris would need to overturn roughly twice that number, although he does have a few more races to play with.
Kimi Raikkonen’s achievement in 2007 was arguably more impressive, the Finn trailing Lewis Hamilton by 26 points but under the old 10-point system, an advantage worth around 60 points in F1’s modern scoring era. Yet both fall short of what stands between Norris and a maiden F1 world championship.
There are reasons to be optimistic, though, if you are a McLaren or Norris fan, or just a neutral who wants to see a close fight.
The length of the season is one of them. With 11 races remaining, 25 points up for a win, plus fastest lap bonus points, and sprint weekends in the United States, Brazil and Qatar, there are a lot of points up for grabs – 310 to be precise.
Clearly Verstappen has a huge head start. He could DNF at three of them and Norris would have to win with bonus points to overhaul him. But the pendulum does feel as if it is swinging.
It would require a number of things for it to happen. McLaren would need to tighten up their race strategy, they have frittered away far too many points in recent races. Norris would need to toughen up. He has also been guilty of throwing points away with bad calls, or mistakes.
McLaren might also need to commit to prioritising his results over Piastri’s (the Australian is 40 points behind Norris) although they do not seem to be prepared to do that. “With Oscar and Lando, we don’t need to decide who is the number one driver,” team principal Andrea Stella said.
“We race fair. And if one of the two drivers gains on merit a result, this is protected. Maybe if it’s the last couple of races and there is a strong championship interest for one of the two drivers, we may revise this.”
It looks as if Norris is going to need to beat Piastri on merit, at least until he can prove beyond doubt he is in the fight.
McLaren do have one trump card: Mercedes. The resurgence of the Brackley team has caused a major headache for Red Bull.
Things could change quickly
With 11 races to go, even if Norris were to win every one of them, Verstappen could just about finish second at each of them and still claim the title depending on what happens with bonus points and sprint points. But with George Russell and Hamilton beginning to get in his way – quite literally in the case of Hamilton last weekend – Verstappen could find himself finishing regularly down in fourth or fifth. There is also Ferrari to consider. The Scuderia could yet get their act together.
Verstappen should have enough in the tank. All logic suggests he will do it. He is a brilliant driver, Red Bull are a well-oiled machine, and he has enough of a lead to see this home. But things could change quickly. Verstappen could crash. He could DNF as he did in Australia. Without a team-mate to help him – Sergio Pérez is enduring a dismal run of form and may be out of a drive by the summer break – he is largely fighting solo.
The Dutchman looked and sounded more rattled than he has for some time in Hungary. And all the while, Mercedes continue to circle him, aware that Red Bull are weaker politically and competitively than they have been for some time. How Toto Wolff would love to prise him from Red Bull.
In conclusion: 76 points is a lot. But it was 84 after Silverstone. And it might have been 69 by now had McLaren played their cards differently in Hungary. They did not. But they are chipping away. It would require something extraordinary, a record comeback unheard-of in Formula One history. But it is not beyond the realms of possibility.
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