On lap 36 of the Italian Grand Prix, race engineer Tom Stallard opened the radio communication with Oscar Piastri: “Do you think you have a chance of completing the race with a one-stopper?” The answer was clear: “I don’t think so, the front left tyre is almost gone.” At that point, Piastri controlled the race with a nearly six-second advantage over Leclerc, a margin that would have allowed Oscar to give himself a few more laps to decide whether to continue indefinitely, assessing the strategy of the Ferrari behind him, or to pit.
McLaren informed Piastri that in reality there was little time to decide, as Lando Norris (who stopped for his second stop on lap 32) was entering the undercut window. At that point Oscar decided to return to the pit lane, the prospect of losing a position to his teammate made him desist from trying to play the wild card already put on the table by Ferrari strategists: aiming for the checkered flag without a second stop. The scenario in which Piastri’s choice matured was not the best, little time available and two opponents to mark, Leclerc and Norris. Oscar chose his teammate.
Lando Norris and Oscar Piastr celebrate third and second place with the McLaren team
Photo by: Steven Tee / Motorsport Images
After the race, the paddock was divided into two factions. There are those who believe that Piastri could have continued the race by managing the advantage over Leclerc, and those who are convinced that McLaren would have suffered a significant drop in performance due to the fateful left front tire, which was indeed tired after the pit stop.
Even Piastri himself, after the race, did not seem to have very clear ideas about what could have been the winning strategy. “Betting on a stop seemed like a very risky decision,” he explained, “we had everything to lose because we were leading the race, while Charles was able to try something a little different. He had nothing to lose, he would have finished third in both cases, even if the strategy had turned out to be wrong. And he chose the right gamble.”
Piastri’s was the last call McLaren had to win the Italian Grand Prix, and the decision was not correct, even if we will never have the proof, because perhaps the graining would have cleaned up, but not all the drivers on the track went like this. Previously, however, there had been other ‘sliding doors’, which apparently on Sunday in Monza always took the team in the wrong direction.
Everything, however, starts from the strong dualism between the two drivers. Without the attack launched by Piastri on Roggia during the first lap, the McLaren strategists could have had an easier life, but even here only if the ideal scenario had taken shape, that is, a car flying in the lead and a second one holding off the group behind. Is it credible? Judging from what we have seen on the track between Lando and Oscar since the beginning of the season, it seems anything but obvious.
Lando Norris congratulates Charles Leclerc on his victory at Monza
Photo by: Steven Tee / Motorsport Images
It is easier to assume that Leclerc would have lined up behind Piastri (as in fact he was in the first stint) with Oscar close to his teammate. According to Andrea Stella, it is at this stage that Ferrari confirmed that they have a very fast car. “Charles remained very close to Oscar despite being in dirty air,” confirmed the team principal, “and this tells us that he was actually faster.” McLaren also speculated that Ferrari had differentiated the strategies between its two drivers, with Sainz set for one stop and Leclerc with two, since Charles set a very fast pace after half the race.
The answer on Charles’ pace is obviously linked to the good performance of the single-seater but also to the introduction that Leclerc was able to make at the start of the second stint, curiously thanks to the undercut suffered by Norris, who stopped the previous lap compared to the Ferrari driver. After returning to the track behind the number 4 McLaren, Leclerc did not have the need to give it his all in the outlap, and allowed himself two less extreme laps that had a very important effect on the overall grip of his set of hards.
Confirmation of this also came from Sainz, who unlike Leclerc, after returning to the track with a set of new tires had to push hard to contain Hamilton’s assault. A ‘tear’ that Carlos then paid for in the final laps, where the drop in pace was more evident than Leclerc.
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