Stella explains why McLaren didn’t reverse Norris and Piastri at the Japanese GP

The 2025 Japanese Grand Prix saw Max Verstappen take victory ahead of the two McLarens of Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri, who were initially considered favorites. Despite radio requests from the Australian, who believed he was faster than his teammate, the team decided not to swap positions between its two drivers. Andrea Stella, the McLaren director, explained the reasons for this decision.

Was Piastri really faster than Norris?

Stella contested the idea that Oscar Piastri was significantly faster than Lando Norris. Mid-race, the young Australian had asked his team over the radio to let him have a go at Verstappen, believing he had a better pace than his teammate. But the Italian director tempered this impression: “I don’t think Oscar was faster. Lando was trying to get even closer to Max’s slipstream, but every time he got under a second, he lost a lot of grip,” he explained.

According to him, Norris was managing his tires to prepare for a later attack, creating the illusion that Piastri was faster. He believes that the main obstacle to a possible attack on Verstappen was the disrupted aerodynamics when following another car closely: “It took about eight-tenths of a second to attack the car in front. As soon as you are within a second, you get a lot of dirty air and your performance drops,” he explained after the race. As a result, even if Piastri seemed to have a better pace at times, this advantage probably wouldn’t have been enough to overtake the Dutch driver, according to him.

A circuit where overtaking was « impossible »

Stella also acknowledged that the outcome of the race was largely determined by the qualifying sessions: The race was mainly decided yesterday when Verstappen secured the pole by a few milliseconds, managed to maintain it in the first lap today, and after that, not much happened. Indeed, once he had the pole, Verstappen flawlessly controlled the race, and the specifics of the Suzuka circuit this year made overtaking almost impossible.

With the new surface, Suzuka has completely changed its personality: degradation is now very low, making overtaking very difficult if you’re on the same strategy, the Italian boss specified. This has notably rendered alternative options like the overcut or the undercut ineffective, significantly limiting the available strategic options.

The director of McLaren explained that if the team had brought Norris into the pits earlier, it could have set him back in the pack in the event of a safety car, an unnecessary risk on a track where pit stops did not offer a decisive advantage. As for the overcut, this option was simply not feasible according to him: « We saw that staying out longer was not faster than stopping early, as shown by Russell: as soon as he put on the new hard tires, he was very fast. Therefore, it was not possible, as is sometimes the case, to stay out to drive faster than a car that had already stopped. »

Important points rather than taking a risk

In the end, McLaren preferred to maintain the status quo between its drivers and secure points rather than attempt a risky victory or create internal tensions. With a double podium and valuable points in the constructors’ championship, the team considered this Grand Prix a relative success, as Stella highlighted: “I think it’s still a good result for us: lots of points for the constructors’ championship and for our two drivers. New encouraging signs regarding our car’s performance, but we clearly see that others are not far behind, or sometimes even ahead.”

However, as the season progresses, McLaren may need to reassess their approach if they want to turn those podiums into victories against Max Verstappen, who, according to Christian Horner, delivered one of his best weekends at Suzuka. Moreover, the Red Bull boss believes that McLaren’s philosophy of equality between drivers could pose a strategic disadvantage and complicate the task for the Woking team against the Dutch champion: “They have two drivers fighting for the championship. The difficulty is that they have chosen to let them fight on track. And that’s the inevitable compromise that follows,” he said, acknowledging that Red Bull doesn’t have this problem with Verstappen and his current teammate, Yuki Tsunoda.