McLaren sheds light on team instructions at Hungaroring

For the first time in his career, Australian driver Oscar Piastri crossed the finish line as the winner of a Grand Prix (although he had already won a sprint race in Losail). However, this victory was difficult to fully celebrate due to the strategy adopted by his team at the end of the race.

A shared destiny for the two McLaren drivers.

One of the key events that influenced the Grand Prix and the strategy of the Woking team was the start. Despite being on pole position, Lando Norris did not get off to a good start as his teammate overtook him at the first corner. From then on, Piastri set a high pace, with Norris and Verstappen behind him. Everything seemed to be working perfectly for McLaren until the final round of pit stops.

Among the leaders, Lewis Hamilton was the first to pit, and to cover the Briton’s stop, McLaren decided to bring Norris in on the 45th lap even though he was in second place. Two laps later, the team asked Piastri to pit, but it was too late. His teammate had done the undercut and taken the lead, putting the team in a confusing situation as the positions were reversed. After the race, both drivers reacted to this event.

I think we made things way too difficult and way too complicated for ourselves. We should have brought Oscar in first and things would have been simple, but they confused me and I spun, explained the Briton, who doesn’t really understand his team’s strategy but showed great altruism by letting his teammate pass.

On his side, the Australian mentioned imperfect communication that put him in a delicate position: “I’m sure it’s something we’ll discuss as a team. The information I had at the time was that Lando was coming in early to cover Lewis [Hamilton], and I was staying out longer to cover Max [Verstappen], essentially because I knew he would stop later, and I think we were just being very cautious.”

Of course, this naturally gave Lando an undercut and may have made things a bit more complicated than they needed to be. But yes, I’m sure it’s something we will look into.

Strategic justifications of the McLaren pit wall

McLaren boss Andrea Stella wanted to justify this strategy, explaining that he did not want to bring his drivers in too early for fear of running out of tires at the end of the race and being passed by Hamilton or Verstappen, who were on a different strategy than the two McLarens.

We did not want to come back too early, because the tires were degrading a lot, and we didn’t want to run out of tires if Verstappen became an issue at the end of the race. Therefore, we simply wanted to delay the pit stop as much as possible. The second element is that you can encounter a problem during the pit stop. So, you have to prioritize safety from the pit stop perspective. I prefer to take responsibility at the pit wall to secure P1, P2.

According to Andrea Stella, bringing in Oscar Piastri first would have been risky, as it would have given the initiative to Red Bull and Max Verstappen by having a clear track ahead of him. Moreover, if Norris’ pit stop had encountered difficulties, he would have come out behind Hamilton, something McLaren wanted to avoid at all costs. Emergency decisions therefore had to be made, decisions that the boss of McLaren approves of, even though he acknowledges that the race could probably have been better managed by the team.