McLaren leave Silverstone disappointed as a 3-4 finish has to go down as an underachievement on Sunday afternoon.
After passing Max Verstappen in the dry, Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri overtook Lewis Hamilton and George Russell in the damp conditions on dry tyres to hold 1st and 2nd in the race.
However, things started to go wrong just after the halfway mark. With Piastri right behind Norris, McLaren decided to leave the Australian out as everyone else in the top 6 pitted for inters.
The rain continued to fall and the track got much slippier, meaning the Australian lost over 15s on his dry tyres versus the other main contenders on inters over the course of lap 28. He fell to P6.
Speaking post-race, Piastri admitted he should have pushed harder for a double stack, even if lost him track position to Lewis Hamilton. Instead, he slipped behind Verstappen, Russell and Sainz as well. He ultimately finished P4.
Andrea Stella admitted it would have been “very fair” for the 23-year-old to have demanded that, admitting McLaren made a mistake.
“Not only should he have pushed, but we should have pushed harder for the double stack because by delaying Oscar’s stop by one lap, we lost much more time than the time we would have lost in a double stack pit stop.
“So, in hindsight, that was the right thing to do, stop both cars at the same time. We take the learning from this experience and we will do better next time.”
Mercedes boxed both cars on the same lap. Although it cost George Russell a spot to Verstappen, it meant he did not go on a painful lap like Piastri.
Stella explained it was a balancing act regarding a double stack versus continuing for another lap. Ultimately it was the wrong decision.
Piastri had looked extremely strong in the changeable conditions, but his hopes of victory were gone after that call.
“Well, obviously you summarise what is going on in terms of assessment very well. These are the two things that you need to weigh.
“I think we were a little greedy, that we didn’t want to accept that we would have lost time with the double stack, but effectively sometimes you just have to be patient and accept that you’re going to lose time, but just do the right thing rather than hoping that one lap more is not going to cost that much, especially when the rain was pretty steady.
“It’s not like he’s going to face easier conditions staying out one more lap.
“I think Oscar would have been in a really strong position today, at least as strong as Lando in terms of opportunities to win the race.”
Things still looked good with Lando Norris as he stayed in front as they transitioned back to the dry tyres in the final 15 laps. However, he stayed out a lap longer than Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen.
A messy stop of 4.5s after he went long in his pit box opened the door for his fellow Brit to take the lead.
The McLaren team principal says the team wanted to have a comfortable switch from inters to dries when deciding on the right time to box.
“I think with Lando the right thing to do was definitely to pit at the same time, but we wanted to have a very safe transition onto the dry tyres, and we lost a bit of time as well at the pit stop. We thought that with one lap more we could still keep the lead, in fairness.”
Stella was pretty sure Norris would have rejoined in front with a normal stop, but he would have been extremely vulnerable on cold soft tyres versus Hamilton’s warm ones.
“It is enough [to stay in front with a standard 2s-2.5s stop], but this doesn’t guarantee that then going to corner 3 and 4 you would still be ahead.
“So, like I say, this is another one in which, with the benefit of hindsight, if I can do the race again, I would pit at the same time as Hamilton and Verstappen.
“Obviously this would leave the question as to which tyres open. Pitting one lap later gives you the possibility to observe what your competitors do, and I think that going on soft wasn’t the right call for us.”
On the soft tyre, Norris simply did not have the speed of Hamilton and Verstappen.
Although he kept the gap at around 2.5s to Hamilton in the next few laps following the stops, he lost pace as the stint went on and was overhauled by Verstappen, finishing a distant P3 in the end.
“In fact, we degraded the tyres too much to be able to retain the position on Verstappen. And in fairness, Lewis did a really good job of making the soft tyres last the entire stint and achieved the victory.”
The McLaren looked quick on the mediums in the first stint, certainly faster than Max Verstappen, and they were close to the pace of the Mercedes duo. They had another new set available for the end of the race.
However, they ultimately chose softs for Norris, a call Stella says the pit wall must take full responsibility for. Verstappen showed mega pace on the C1 hard tyre, proving the Woking-based team made a bad decision.
The Italian added McLaren must be more proactive and decisive with their decisions next time.
“In those conditions we wanted to check also with Lando what his preference was, what we should be going after.
“One aspect was also do you think it will be tricky, this we didn’t ask. The sense of asking with Lando, deciding with Lando, was will it be tricky going on a C2 [medium] compound in these conditions.
“But, in fairness, as a matter of fact it wasn’t that tricky because Verstappen on a hard compound managed the transition onto the dry tyres without big issues.
“So, I think this one was a decision that from the people we should have taken, once again, like in stopping Oscar in the double stack, we should have taken the responsibility to say the medium is just the right tyre, we go for it.
“I think in checking with Lando we kind of self-doubted and this led us to follow this direction which in hindsight was incorrect.”
Hamilton’s decision to put on softs for the final 15 laps did influence and change their mind on what tyres to put on, according to Stella.
There was concern as to how much time they would lose in the first couple of laps on mediums as the 24-year-old would have needed to fire a harder tyre up.
“Definitely the fact that Lewis went on soft is one of the disturbing factors towards the fact that we actually were going on medium.
“I think there the bet was, will the soft make it to the end, and how much gap will the soft gain at the start in transition compared to going there on medium, because the medium will be faster at the end.
“But how much time do you lose in the first two, three laps on a medium, and is there any risk that you put a wheel on a wet patch and you lose the car.
“So I think in this respect, I think we were too influenced by the fact that Lewis went on soft. I think we should have been more like medium is the right tyre.”
Stella is sure Norris could have caught Hamilton with a medium tyre if they had fitted that. As for passing him? He was not so sure.
“That’s not guaranteed because Lewis managed to keep the tyres in good shape, so you have to overtake.
“I think we could have got in the gearbox of Lewis, but overtaking is a slightly different matter.”
