Following a tremendous achievement during qualifying, McLaren’s race was a little less fortunate. After Lando Norris narrowly escaped going out in Q1 in the morning he grabbed pole position in a dominant fashion, but was already at the start demoted to second by a better getaway from George Russell. Overtaking the Mercedes proved impossible due to a lack of top speed, and tough luck with the red flag meant he eventually ended up in sixth, losing an additional place to Charles Leclerc at the final restart.
But before diving into those moments team boss Andrea Stella first wanted to congratulate their rivals Max Verstappen and Red Bull Racing, as well as Alpine who scored a double podium today.
“The first thing I would like to say is to congratulate Max for one of the best victories of his career, very impressive from where he started, great drive and also great pace, because he moved up the field thanks to the pace and also thanks to making a brave decision under the red flag, in the situation that then led to the red flag, for not stopping and staying out on tyres that were relatively worn at the time.
“This paid to the advantage of Max and the advantage of Alpine, and I think even Alpine deserves definitely congratulations for a double podium finish.
“In terms of the race itself, it was dominated by many episodes, I would say, and together with the episodes, which I will cover, we also have to acknowledge that our car today didn’t enjoy any particular pace advantage.”
This lack of pace on the intermediates is something the team needs to look into, Stella admitted, despite Norris being quicker than Russell in parts of the race.
“We weren’t the fastest car out there on intermediate tyres like we were on dry tyres, so if anything, this is the first opportunity to look into and see how we can go faster with intermediate tyres.
“In terms of the episodes, Lando lost one position at the start, then we were faster than Russell, but no way to overtake, and then at some stage when the rain started to increase, both drivers in fairness acknowledged that we needed new rubber to stay out in those conditions.
“The reason why this decision didn’t pay off is that the rain became very intense, leading to, together with the crash, a red flag.”
Stella defends their choice to pit for new inters, as there was a brief Virtual Safety Car and an increasing amount of water on the track. The eventual red flag caused by Franco Colapinto’s crash meant the people that stayed out would get a free tyre change.
“We thought at the time that with the virtual safety car, and with the increased amount of water on track, it was important to go on a new tyre.
“And I think without the red flag, and with a little less intensity, which is always difficult to predict, it would have been quite difficult for the people that had not changed the tyres.
“Sometimes you look brilliant because you commit to something, and it’s always easier to commit when you are behind, and you look like a hero.
“And I’m here congratulating them for their decisions,” Stella reiterated. “But at the same time I backed the decision that we made because it came with full agreement of the drivers, the pit wall.
“And also a little bit of reason as to here we need to make sure we stay on track, because we compete for points, we compete for both championships, and we need to finish races.
“And personally I’m not very comfortable to leave a car out there with tyres that are pretty worn with that amount of water. So without the red flag we would be commenting another race here.”
At the final restart Norris had a lock-up going into the Senna S, losing places to Leclerc and team mate Oscar Piastri, but the position was quickly swapped with the Ozzy.
“Lando lost a couple of positions because of lock-ups,” Stella explained. “We have struggled with these lock-ups all weekend, in wet conditions, with both drivers, and I think from a car point of view this is also something that we need to look into.”
Piastri’s race was ‘highlighted’ by him spinning Liam Lawson around, an incident which cost him a ten-second penalty. A penalty Stella couldn’t disagree with.
“For Oscar the race was, in a way, a little stuck in this seventh, eighth position, no way to overtake, and then we got the penalty, which is fair, deserved.
“We paid it at the end, and thankfully it only cost us one position.”
In the end, Stella felt the decisions were justifiable, just not very lucky. He concluded: “Some of the decisions didn’t pay off as we expected, but we are also thinking that they were quite sensible at the time.”
