McLaren reveal ‘small glitch’ that may have cost Lando Norris victory at the Hungarian GP

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Lando Norris blamed a poor start for his defeat to teammate Oscar Piastri during the Hungarian Grand Prix and McLaren has revealed why it happened.

The McLaren driver lost the lead from pole when Piastri got a better start and took to the inside on the run down to Turn 1.

The bad start also enabled Max Verstappen to get alongside Norris, which led to a three-wide moment that caused the Dutchman to run off track.

When he rejoined it was ahead of Norris, which prompted calls from his team to give the position back to avoid a penalty for leaving the track and gaining an advantage.

After investigating the poor start from Norris, McLaren confirmed that it was a ‘small glitch’ that led to him dropping positions.

McLaren confirms ‘small glitch’ start problem for Lando Norris

Writing on their official website, McLaren went into detail about what the problem was for Norris who put the loss of the race down to the poor start.

“It wasn’t the smoothest of starts to the race for Lando, though, as he experienced a small glitch finding second gear during his acceleration from pole,” said McLaren.

“This allowed Verstappen to slipstream alongside to his left, on the outside of the first corner.”

Norris blamed himself when speaking to media after the race in the drivers press conference: “I lost the win off the line. You know, I had a terrible, not even a terrible start, just a bad start. Something happened on my second shift and I lost all my momentum.”

The worrying F1 start statistic for Lando Norris

Although this appears to be a mechanical fault that caused the poor start for Norris, it is the fifth occasion out of all five poles that he has failed to keep the race lead into Turn 1.

This includes his first pole at the 2021 Russian Grand Prix and the most recent pole prior to Hungary in Barcelona, where he put his poor start down to losing the race win.

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In addition, he also lost the lead from pole during the Sprint race at Shanghai and last year’s Brazilian Grand Prix – both of which Verstappen went on to win.

Norris finished the race in second after getting embroiled in a team orders saga with his McLaren engineers, after they made a strategic mistake with their two drivers during the final pit stops.