The McLaren drivers' eventual split-strategy certainly made for a gripping end to Formula 1's Hungarian Grand Prix.
But was that strategic split - which ultimately decided the outcome of the race - handled fairly, especially with the two-stopping Oscar Piastri telling McLaren on multiple occasions he wanted the "best chance" to try to beat one-stopping race-winner Lando Norris?
Here's our verdict:
Piastri deserved this win
Scott Mitchell-Malm
I feel for Piastri. Norris soaked up a lot of pressure late on and did well to make the one-stop work: but lots of drivers did, so that strategy turned out to be perfectly viable, and Norris only really ended up on that strategy because he had a poor opening lap.
There might have been something McLaren could have done more sharply with Piastri's strategy. Maybe trying to undercut Leclerc in the first stint was premature. But if it didn't try, we'd likely all be asking why McLaren wasn't aggressive and trying to win the race.
Remember, it's only in hindsight that a one-stop became viable and also there was no suggestion that Leclerc's pace would just nosedive in the final stint. He finished 37.5s off the win before his penalty, and nobody could have foreseen that.
Piastri deserved this win, and in a straight fight would have won it. It'll be interesting in the post-race analysis if there was an alternative route to victory that didn't involve just removing Norris from the picture.
So the question I suppose is should McLaren have got involved like last year and forced a position swap? That's a far greater intervention than trying to run the best strategies for each driver. With where the cars ran early on, a two-stop for Piastri made sense. Norris was nowhere a one-stop at one stage, but once it became possible, that was worth a gamble.
McLaren's priority is to make the best play it can to win, and get a 1-2. There are too many things influenced by that (not least various staff wins and points bonuses) for the team's best possible result to be compromised just for the sake of the fairest fight between the drivers possible - that's well established.
McLaren played it right - twice
Gary Anderson
I always say that the strategy is a living thing: it changes from lap to lap as the teams compile the data and I don't think either driver should be disappointed, as they both drove exceptionally well.
I think McLaren showed that today and did it correctly. It looked early on as if Norris had thrown it all away ending up fifth at end of the first lap, and at that point McLaren's chance of winning was to battle Leclerc as best as possible, which is what it did with Piastri. Those two pitting on lap 19 (Piastri) and 20 (Leclerc) more or less committed them to a two-stop, which on paper was probably the fastest race time - but traffic can play a big role in the end result at the Hungaroring.
However, after they had both stoped and Norris was basically hung out to dry, but leading and doing reasonable laptimes, there was nothing else to do but try for a one-stop. Again, that's what McLaren did and it worked out - just.
That lock-up from Piastri into the first corner could have ended it all for both of them and was reminiscent of exactly the same lock-up into Turn 4 at the Red Bull Ring, which McLaren felt crossed a line, but the two survived to battle another day.
It's going to be a pleasant summer break down in Woking, but with 10 races still to go the drivers' championship is still up for grabs between these two. As for the constructors' championship, all McLaren needs is to make sure it has room on the trophy shelf; as the saying goes, 'it's coming home, it's coming home'.
Norris won fair and square
Josh Suttill
Swapping the McLarens in the final stint would have been ridiculous and set a weird precedent for the second half of the season.
The team didn't deliberately give Norris the faster strategy; the circumstance of a poor first lap and the one-stop surprisingly emerging as the faster strategy meant Norris somewhat lucked into the better strategy.
But he still had to execute it and he did that very well.
It worked out for Norris on Sunday, and on another day Piastri may end up on the faster alternative strategy and benefit.
It's far better to let that happen naturally than manufacture a corrective sense of justice into something as fluid as racing.
In particular when McLaren has a car with the potential to win every remaining race of the year, let's be glad they're not doing that.
Plus, there are always going to be little swings in the season where putting the team first slightly compromises one driver or the other, so where do you draw the line balancing that out?
Piastri has every right to kick up a fuss
Valentin Khorounzhiy
Piastri is smart enough not to make a big stink out of the defeat, in a season where the team has provided him a championship-capable car - but he is also smart enough to know he got screwed.
Which he obviously did. Norris was fifth on the first lap, and turned that into a win. The strategy he ended up saddled with - which, it bears saying, I am 100% sure was through race circumstance - was demonstrably better than Piastri's, whose race fell victim to that early stop targeting a Leclerc undercut.
Norris might have been marginally the faster driver here but he won because he qualified behind. And it's all well and good to say McLaren turned a 2-3 (even 2-4) into a 1-2 here, but at a certain part of the season that doesn't matter to your drivers and you have to know that.
It was very strange that race engineer Tom Stallard was asking Piastri whether he wanted to prioritise beating Leclerc or beating Norris; like, what do you think? It was stranger still to hear Stallard tell Piastri on the cooldown lap that "we go into the shutdown leading both championships". Oh, we're leading the constructors' with by far the best car on the field? Word? That's supposed to make the driver feel better?
McLaren maximised its chances of a Hungarian GP win and a Hungarian GP 1-2. It gave us neutrals a much better race in the process. But, as the steward of a championship battle between just two drivers - its drivers - in 2025, it put its thumb on the scale. Piastri must know that - it's his duty to keep bringing it up.
McLaren didn't take principles too far this time
Matt Beer
McLaren's intervention to swap Norris and Piastri around in last year's Hungarian GP was a fairness principle taken way too far, at a time when it was Norris who needed those points most and the cars had only ended up in the 'wrong' (for the day, not for the season) order through some normal racing circumstances.
It was just such a set of normal circumstances that meant Norris turned fifth at the first corner into victory at Piastri's expense this time. You could argue that Norris was switched to what turned out to be a preferential strategy as an unfair reward for being outqualified and having a limp first lap. But from there, he made it work with mighty pace at the times he needed it most.
That's the most encouraging part of it for the second half of a season that at quite a few points has looked like it would turn into a Piastri walkover. The Australian still feels like he'd be the most deserving champion if their relative form and racecraft stays as it has been, but at least Norris is putting up a proper fight.
