11/07/2024
NEWS STORY
McLaren boss, Andrea Stella takes the blame for the errors that cost both Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri on Sunday, insisting that it is the pit-wall that bears full responsibility for making vital calls.
While Ferrari seems determined to rescue defeat from the jaws of victory, McLaren didn't do a bad job on Sunday, leaving Oscar Piastri out for one lap longer than his teammate and thereby costing him an almost certain podium finish, while Lando Norris' switch to softs for the final stint proved equally costly.
"Clearly some things we need to review," said Piastri at race end, according to Speedcafe, "the Australian finishing fourth, 5s down on his teammate. "I think double stacking would have been the better call, but hindsight's a wonderful thing.
"The last couple of corners were very, very tough," he said of the 'extra' lap as conditions worsened. "I could see on my dash that Lando was like five seconds behind me when I pitted, so I knew I was in a lot of trouble then. I knew it was the wrong call basically instantly."
"Not only should he have pushed but we should have pushed harder for the double-stack," admits Stella, "because by delaying Oscar's stop by one lap we lost much more time than the time we would have lost in a double-stack pit stop.
"In hindsight, that was the right thing to do," he adds, "stop both cars at the same time, and we take the learning from this experience and we will do better next time.
"These are the two things that you need to weigh," the Italian continues. "I think we were a little greedy that we didn't want to accept that we would have lost time with the double-stack.
"Sometimes you just have to be patient and accept that you're going to lose time but just do the right thing rather than hoping that one lap more is not going to cost that much, especially when the rain was pretty steady, so it's not like he's going to face easier conditions staying out one more lap.
"I think Oscar would have been in a really strong position, like at least as strong as Lando in terms of opportunities to win the race. We should have just forced Oscar to say like 'sorry mate it's going to be double-stack'.
"The driver is driving," he adds, "and I think we are asking too much of the drivers. They should be doing a good job driving, keeping on track on the right tyres in wet conditions and by the way process the whole timing thing.
"That's why there's a pit wall, that should help the drivers and in this case we have to say that we missed some opportunities."
However, the team was to subsequently mess-up with Norris also, pitting a lap after Lewis Hamilton, who was running second, and fitting a set of used softs, as did Mercedes to the seven-time world champion's car.
Not helping the situation was the fact that Norris entered his slot a little too quickly and slid into position.
"The right thing to do was definitely to pit at the same time," admits Stella, "but we wanted to have a very safe transition on to the dry tyres and we lost a bit of time as well at the pit stop. We thought that with one lap more we could still keep the lead in fairness."
However, Stella admits that even without the slow stop it would have been difficult for Norris to maintain his lead.
"This doesn't guarantee that when going to corner 3 or 4 you would still be ahead," argues Stella. "This is another one in which, with the benefit of hindsight, if I can do the race again, I will pit at the same time as Hamilton and Verstappen.
"Obviously this would leave the question as to which tyres," he adds. "Pitting one lap later gives you the possibility to observe what your competitors do and I think that going on soft wasn't the right call for us. In fact, we degraded the tyres too much to be able to retain the position on Verstappen and, in fairness, Lewis did a really good job of making the soft tyres last the entire stint."
While race leader Hamilton was on softs, Verstappen had switched to hards, while Piastri was on mediums and quicker than the cars ahead. Had McLaren opted to fit Norris with mediums also, as opposed to softs, it is entirely possible that the Briton could have won. However, Norris was adamant that he wanted softs like Hamilton.
"In those conditions, we wanted to check also with Lando what his preference was, what we should be going after, and one aspect was also do you think it will be tricky? This we didn't ask," admits the Italian. "The sense of asking with Lando, deciding with Lando, was 'will it be tricky going on a C2 compound in these conditions?'
"In fairness, as a matter of fact, it wasn't that tricky because Verstappen on a hard compound managed the transition to the dry tyres without big issues. So I think this one was a decision that from the pit wall we should have taken once again. Like in stopping Oscar in the double-stack, we should have taken the responsibility to say the medium is just the right tyre, we go for it.
"In checking with Lando, we kind of self-doubted and this led us to follow this direction which, in hindsight, was important. Definitely the fact that Lewis went on soft is one of the disturbing factors towards the fact that we actually were going on medium, if makes sense. I think there the bet was, will the soft make it to the end and how much gap will the soft gain at the start in transition compared to going there on medium?
"The medium will be faster at the end but how much time do you lose in the first two, three laps on a medium and is there any risk that you put a wheel on a wet patch and you lose the car. In this respect we I think we were too influenced by the fact that Lewis went on soft," he admits. "We should have been more like medium is the right tyre.
"We have the possibility to make the call, we have more information, we have more people, so the responsibility of going on soft rather than on medium which would have been a better call stands with the team. It's 100 percent my responsibility on the pit wall," says the Italian.
"The driver kind of gives his point of view, that is a point of view, and in that case it should have been the people to make a call saying we go medium because the soft may not make it to the end."