McLaren team principal Andrea Stella believes his team did a good job in its decision-making process at the ever-changing conditions of the 2025 F1 Australian GP, and believes the learning from past mistakes has made the difference in allowing Lando Norris to weather the storm and come out on top in the season opener.
Norris started from pole as the rain continued to fall over Albert Park, and managed to maintain that lead on intermediate tyres up until lap 45, when a massive rain cell approached the last sector and meant he and team-mate Oscar Piastri struggled to keep their cars on track, with the Australian suffering a costly off-road moment that brought him down the order, whilst the Briton carried on without major consequences, and pitting for intermediate tyres immediately.
How 2024 “learnings” contributed to good decision-making in F1 Australian GP
But it was an all-too-familiar scenario from some of the races in 2024, like Canada and Silverstone, when McLaren had dominated the race but lost out during transition periods, either from dry to wet or vice-versa – and the learnings from those painful experiences is what helped them make the right choices at Melbourne, according to team principal Andrea Stella:
“Both Lando [Norris] and Oscar [Piastri] gave us very precise feedback and very useful for our decision-making at the pit wall,” he said. “At some stage, when we had the rain possibly coming, Lando asked, like, ‘should we go preventatively on intermediate tyres?’, [and] we used some of the learning from the past to actually make sure that we were dealing with this with a certain, like, ‘let’s not get ahead of ourselves’ [approach].”
Norris’ early call for inters was “probably wise”
Despite a general satisfaction with how the decisions were made in such delicate conditions, Stella admits Norris’ call for intermediates a lap earlier than anticipated was probably the right choice given the sudden heavy downpour that hit the final sector:
“But in fairness to Lando, considering the way in which the rain came, probably having gone one lap earlier on intermediate tyres would have been wise,” Stella admitted. “It’s always quite tricky in these kinds of situations, but I’m very happy personally with how the pit wall, together with the drivers, assessed the situation and then made the decisions.“
Improvements to be made still
Stella even queried whether the team could’ve done more to ensure the drivers were aware of just how much rain and what intensity it would be before the costly off for Piastri, and believes there are improvements that could be made in that regard:
“If anything, we should check as a team if we were in conditions to warn our drivers earlier that there was a wall of water that was approaching the last sector.
“But in terms of the decision-making, when the rain starts in the middle, overlaps in the middle of the track, it’s very difficult to say, ‘do I go preventatively or I just wait and hit it?’
“Obviously, if you wait and hit it, then you should sort of know that that’s the case, but for the drivers, it was quite sudden.”
Whilst Norris managed to escape the gravel and return to the pits safely, Piastri slid off towards the grass on the outside of turn 13 and took a while to recover, losing him valuable time, as he dropped all the way down to 14th place and a lap down, which he would only recover back to ninth place after a ballsy overtake on Lewis Hamilton’s Ferrari around the outside of turn nine.
“Clearly, we had told our drivers, like, ‘as soon as the rain wets the track, it’s [pit] in’. Obviously, they got the answer themselves in a costly manner,” Stella said regarding the off-track excursions from his drivers.
