Car, driver, team. To win in Formula 1 you need the perfect package, a system capable of fitting the gears together and making them work in absolute synchronicity. The McLaren case, because it is now a case, clearly shows how in the absence of one of these pieces the mosaic does not take shape. After the success obtained by Lando Norris in the Miami Grand Prix, the team of Zak Brawn and Andrea Stella obtained five seconds and a third place, confirming absolute competitiveness on every type of track and condition.
Despite a significant climb in the Constructors’ standings, where McLaren has moved to just seven points from Ferrari, the balance is starting to be deficient when compared to the technical potential. There have been victories lost due to strategic choices, others due to driver mistakes or accidents, as in the recent Austrian Grand Prix. It is however clear that McLaren today has the fastest single-seater on the track, an assessment immediately confirmed over the Silverstone weekend after Friday’s tests. The forecast remained unchanged even after the front row blocked by the two Mercedes in qualifying, Norris continued to be considered in the paddock as the number one candidate for victory in the British Grand Prix.
The first stint of the race confirmed the predictions. From laps 20 to 26 the two papaya cars occupied first and second position, with Norris ahead of an aggressive Oscar Piastri, who started fifth and finished eight tenths behind his teammate. When the rain made it necessary to switch from the slick tyres fitted at the start to the intermediates, McLaren’s harakiri began. On lap 27, instead of calling both drivers into the pits (as Mercedes did), the team decided to pit only Norris, leaving Piastri on the track for one more lap to avoid a double stop. A mistake that irreparably compromised the Australian’s race. If Oscar had entered the pits behind his teammate, he would have lost four to five seconds more than the standard time needed for a tyre change, but by staying on the track the seconds lost became eighteen, a handicap that demoted him from second to sixth place.
“We were guilty of greed,” Stella admitted. “We didn’t want to give up the lead in the race. We should have pushed harder for the double stop, Oscar should have done the same. We didn’t want to accept that we would have lost a bit more time by pitting the two cars together, instead we assessed that an extra lap for Oscar wouldn’t have been a big loss. But the rain was constant, so we should have foreseen the time he then lost. It’s a shame because Oscar would have been in a really good position, he would have had the same chances as Lando to win the race.”
Lando Norris, McLaren MCL38
Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images
After penalizing Piastri, McLaren strategists also stumbled in managing Norris’ race. In the final phase of the second stint, Hamilton was able to get close to Lando but was never in a position to attempt an attack. Mercedes broke the deadlock on lap 38, calling Lewis to the pits to switch from intermediates to softs. The first small mistake was being caught off guard, but not only that. Norris returned to the pit lane the following lap, but the change was slower than expected: 4 and a half seconds. The last mistake, perhaps the most serious, concerned the choice of compound for the last set of tires. Lando had a set of new hards and mediums and a set of used softs.
The ‘red’ tyres were mounted on his single-seater, despite the fact that after the pit stop (which took place on the same lap as Hamilton, with a switch to the ‘medium’ tyres) Piastri was two seconds faster than Mercedes in the first two sectors. “We wanted to involve Lando in the choice – explained Stella – but we should have made the decision from the pit wall since we had the possibility of
control the opponents’ times. It was a classic case where it was up to us to take responsibility for the choice instead of leaving it to Lando”. The result was the loss of second place due to the degradation of the soft tyre that became evident five laps from the end. “We have a lot of information on the pit wall,” Stella added, “and there is a group of people who take care of their analysis. So the responsibility of fitting the soft, rather than the medium, ultimately falls to the team, it is 100% my responsibility. I repeat, we should have been the ones to tell Lando ‘no, let’s fit the medium because the soft might not make it to the end'”.
Despite having the best single-seater for several races, McLaren is still stuck with just one win in Miami, a figure that clashes quite a bit with the score of Ferrari and Mercedes, both with two wins to their name. However, there are also positive aspects, the glass half full that Stella did not fail to underline. “We are frustrated because today we finished the race with a third and fourth place, we missed some opportunities but we will continue to grow by making the most of these experiences. We are competing with teams that have won many championships and boast notable stability in sensitive roles, they have a lot of experience and familiarity with the fight at the top of the standings. But our opportunity to show that we are there will come soon and we must be ready to seize it”.
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