McLaren did NOT want Lando Norris to win | Papaya Rules | 2026 Hungarian GP Review

**Kunal Shah** (0:00)
Introducing Meta Glasses. You have questions, they've got answers.
Hey Meta, what's the capital of Peru?

**Soumil Arora** (0:08)
Lima.

**Kunal Shah** (0:09)
How do you say, where's the restroom in Spanish? Dónde está el baño?
Hey Meta, is a hot dog a sandwich?

**Soumil Arora** (0:17)
Technically no. Spiritually, yes.

**Kunal Shah** (0:20)
Hey Meta, what should I do with my life? That's one of life's biggest questions. What do you think?
Ask anything with the new Meta Glasses.

**Soumil Arora** (0:32)
All right then, a few hours after the 2026 Hungarian Grand Prix, and we're still reeling off what was a crazy race at the Hungaro Ring. First time ever that the Inside Line F1 Podcast was on an official F1 broadcast live. Because Kunal and I were on the Hindi F1 commentary feed, commentating together.
I was doing the play-by-play, Kunal giving it his analysis and insight on the broadcast. And we got to see the final race before the summer break, won by Lando Norris, but McLaren seemingly did want him to. That turns out to be the biggest piece of drama that we had from the race, where Oscar Piastri was leading, and that an incident with Carlos Sainz, among many other small things, contributed to his gearbox eventually giving away. And Oscar Piastri had to retire from the race. But the biggest story of the Valkenal, McLaren have won a race. Finally, we have five different race winners in 2026

**Kunal Shah** (1:35)
We have five different race winners in 2026, and all five of them have come in the last five races. So what a splendid win. We came to this weekend again, not wanting Ferrari to be favorites, and I think they took themselves, they took that not the favorites tag, very seriously. I think one of the bigger stories is also how Ferrari could have won, but they just couldn't get clean air, they couldn't get track position to help themselves. We'll also dissect that. But what I loved was the very fact that you and I, together, for the very first time, despite having been doing this for years, together we were leading an official Formula 1 broadcast commentary.
In a market that now officially has 98 million fans, with FanCode, who is broadcasting Formula 1 in three languages. The only country in the world where Formula 1 is broadcast live in three different languages. It was a beautiful moment and thank you for sharing it with me, Soumil Arora.

**Soumil Arora** (2:43)
No, it was so much fun. It's what we've been working towards on the Inside Line F1 Podcast for the last decade. This is essentially what the dream was for us. When my dad first reached us to Kunal, like 10 odd years ago. So it's a circle of life.

**Kunal Shah** (2:57)
It wasn't 10, it was 14 years ago.

**Soumil Arora** (3:00)
Well, 14 years ago, 2012
What a circle of life. Wonderful to be able to do that on FanCode. I hope a lot of you were also watching live on the Hindi feed with us because during the race, we were able to point out so many pressing questions, including what happened with the pit stop cycle. Because Papaya rules were in play, and Lando Norris could well have not won this race, had it not been for Carlos Sainz or Oscar Piastri's gearbox feeling itself.

**Kunal Shah** (3:30)
And had it not been for a really rapid Lewis Hamilton as well. So what we are talking about, guys, is Lando Norris behind Oscar Piastri, chasing him down, saying consistently, I'm the quicker driver, trying to prove it with consistently quicker lap times, was trying to get McLaren to box him first. And McLaren chose Papaya rules over their World Champion driver. So McLaren still choosing that the team is bigger than the driver. That approach still works even more so in a season, when they're not the favorites, they're not the most dominant team. So that was one scenario, McLaren denied that undercut opportunity. Having said that, McLaren also on the radio were coaching Oscar Piastri. They were telling him where he could go quicker, but Piastri was not able to pick the pace. Or was he saving tires by himself because he thought he needed to, or was he genuinely not able to pick up the pace? My guess is that he couldn't pick up the pace even during his first top window. So Lando Norris was the quicker McLaren driver. Then Norris went longer. And at that time, when McLaren wanted to pit him, Lewis Hamilton came into his window. So had McLaren pit him, they would have lost track position to Lewis Hamilton. So they said, you know what, let's just go longer. And what did Hamilton do? Sorry, no, what did Lando Norris do?