McLaren team principal Andrea Stella praised Lando Norris’ careful approach towards his tyres in the second stint of the 2024 Emilia Romagna GP, which allowed the now one-time grand prix winner to challenge Max Verstappen in what was a thrilling finish to the race at Imola, with Norris finishing less than a second behind the three-time world champion despite being as far as six seconds back at one stage.
Stella admitted McLaren thought Verstappen was out of reach in the initial part of the race, as the Dutchman stretched the gap out in front comfortably when both cars were on the medium tyres, and therefore switched McLaren’s focus to defending from the charging Ferraris – which he believes, in hindsight, might have cost them some important time, but not enough to change the overall result:
“I think that there were already 63 laps, which is many,” he said when asked if Norris could win given a few more laps. “And I think Max [Verstappen] did a good job in managing his budget over the 63 laps and just making sure that it was enough to retain the first position. I also think that it’s good to be in the quest for the victory at the end of the race, but ultimately, if we look at the first stint, Max was opening the gap.
“It was an interesting race because the tyres were able to operate within a narrow window and therefore, I think a combination of driver, car characteristics, the way you were using the tyres, created different scenarios from a competitiveness point of view.
“[In the] first stint, Max seemed to be in control and we needed to look at the mirrors with Lando, even if Oscar [Piastri] actually was putting quite a lot of pressure on Carlos [Sainz]. Second stint, Lando took care of his tyres at the start of the stint because we saw that the medium [tyres] struggled, which meant that it was not going to be an easy run to the end on hard tyres.
“And also, we saw that people who had the hard tyres in the first stint, they were not very brilliant, like [Sergio] Perez. So, it was very tactical from this point of view, and I think Lando did a good job of saving tyres for a long part of the second stint and then using the budget towards the end.
“But at the same time, there were times when [Charles] Leclerc was the fastest car on track.
“So, a very, very interesting race from this point of view. I think we see the benefit of having more than one competitive car, which creates various scenarios and I think that was quite entertaining, certainly on the pitwall.”
The discrepancy in relative pace between McLaren and Red Bull on different tyre compounds was certainly a major factor in the ever-swinging nature of the Imola race, with the McLaren boss explaining how there was no strategic options for McLaren in the first stint to fight against Verstappen due to the Red Bull’s inherently better pace on the C4 Pirelli rubber and the difference the drivers made on a Sunday where most front-running teams were on very similar race pace:
“I think the pace Max had in the first stint on medium tyres was just superior to what we had. And I think with Lando we minimised the race time.
“Just managing the budget of the tyres, I don’t think for us it would have been possible to play tactically with somebody stopping early. I think we played our cards. In fairness, I think Red Bull is certainly a very good car.
“But today I think we also see the skills of the driver who won the race. It’s Max Verstappen. And for us it’s important that we prove that we can be there and knock at the door of victories in a weekend in which at some stage it looked like Ferrari had the fastest car.
“Then Max appeared in qualifying like it was very variable. So it’s important that in the race we were there.”
Delving more specifically into the challenges relating to the tyres, Stella revealed the main limiting factor was heat degradation, and not wear. He believes the tyres were “too hot” in their first stint and praised Norris’ patience to avoid “overcooking” his new hard tyres after the pit stop, which allowed him to put on a superb late charge to pressure the 59-time grand prix winner in the closing stages:
“It looked today that if you take your tyres to too high a temperature, then the drop was quite significant. It’s like it wasn’t a plateau, but like it was a little bit of a cliff and you lose quite a lot of performance. I think for us the tyres at the start of the race, in the first stint, they were too hot.
“Therefore we were losing ground to Verstappen. But in the second stint, especially Lando, I think he managed to control the pace while the tyres were newer. The newer they are, the easier they get hotter in a way.
“So there I think he was very patient, not overcook it and this paid off at the end. So I think it has mainly to do with this.”
