RACING LINES
Damien Smith
Piastri came awfully close to hitting Norris as they fought for first
And breathe. Formula 1’s hard-travelled teams and drivers take a well-earned break this month before the season resumes at the Dutch Grand Prix on 31 August, the start of a 10-race run to Abu Dhabi on 7 December. It has been utterly absorbing so far, thanks to the all-McLaren battle for the championship between Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris – two beautifully matched but entirely contrasting racing drivers revelling in squeezing every drop from the best car on the grid.
Just nine points separate them after July’s Spa-Francorchamps and Hungaroring doubleheader. Piastri won in Belgium and should have done so in Hungary too, only for a nothing-to-lose single pit-stop strategy to elevate Norris to an unlikely victory. Outqualified by both Piastri and Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc on pole, Norris dropped a couple more places on the opening lap. Strangely, it was the making of his Sunday afternoon, forcing McLaren into an unfancied tyre strategy that ended up working a treat. Stopping just once vaulted Norris into the lead, and in lower than usual temperatures on a track where overtaking is notoriously difficult, his hard-compound Pirellis had the life to survive a mammoth 39-lap final stint. F1, predictable? Not really.