Oscar Piastri raises major Lando Norris question: 'I don't have the answer'

Oscar Piastri "does not have the answer" to whether he could have completed a one-stop strategy to defeat Lando Norris in the Hungarian Grand Prix.

A poor start from Norris meant McLaren switched the Briton to a one-stop at the Hungaroring with Piastri continuing on the planned two-stopper. 

Norris stopped for the only time on Lap 31, with Piastri making his second switch to Hard tyres on Lap 46, and after passing Charles Leclerc on Lap 51, had 19 laps to make up 8.9s on Norris to snatch the win.

Piastri carved great chunks of time out of Norris, and entered DRS range with five laps to go, but could not pass the sister MCL39, narrowly avoiding a collision at Turn 1 on Lap 69 of 70.

Norris's win cut Piastri's points lead to nine heading into the summer break, with the Australian unsure whether he could have pulled off a one-stop strategy of his own.

"I think we had to try and do something to beat Leclerc because it wasn't obvious that we just had enough pace to blow past him and go and win that way," Piastri told media, including RacingNews365. 

"So, we tried something. Was it the right thing in the end? I don't know. But it's always much easier when you're the car behind to take that risk. For Lando, there was virtually nothing to lose by trying a one-stop race. 

"For myself, potentially there was. And, we'll look back and see if there was anything we should have done differently.

"But a two-stop was always the plan before the race, so it wasn't even really discussed that much about doing a one-stop. So, it was certainly a gamble.

"We did speak about it a bit before the race, so it wasn't completely off the table, and in the race, I got asked about it. 

"It is very difficult to know from the cockpit what is going to be the best thing to do, and like I said, when you're the car behind, your risk-reward ratio is always much different.

"Could we have matched Lando? That's the question that I don't have the answer to. So, I guess that's the only thing. 

"But we wanted to try and win the race as well, and the best way of trying to beat Lando is by trying to win the race as well. That was obviously the intention, but I think we'll analyse if there was something we could have done a bit differently."