Andrea Stella said that McLaren thought the strategy used with Lando Norris was worth trying in order to attempt to clinch a podium finish, and understanding how the race would pan out wasn’t easy.
Norris started the race right behind the two Red Bulls, in P3. However, he ended up in P5 as both Ferraris outpaced him. The McLaren team principal said that the team wanted to avoid being undercut by Ferrari and decided to stop Norris early in the race since he had two hard tires ready to be used.
“I think we were a little out of options because when we stopped Lando at the start, we kind of knew that Ferrari was ready to go to undercut us,” he said.
“So we wanted to play preventatively. We had two sets of hard, so we could stop early, and in stopping Lando early we wanted to see like, can we go for the podium? And we even tried to see can we go for it to beat Perez?
“I thought it was worthwhile trying that. Ultimately, this put us on a race which might have been slightly unpreferred from overall time [of the race] point of view, but I think it was very worthwhile trying. So on Lando’s side, we are happy that we wanted to try finishing on the podium.”
Stella also explained why McLaren decided to stop Norris at the same time as Charles Leclerc made his pit stop, pointing out how waiting to box could’ve compromised the Britton’s race even more since both Mercedes might’ve overtaken him.
“The timing of the second stop was forced by Leclerc,” he said. “Also, there was Carlos approaching Lando. So Carlos would have overtaken Lando and once Carlos overtakes Lando, Lando loses time, and then he ends up behind Hamilton and Russell.
“Because when you race so many cars, you have to consider multiple implications. It’s not like you’re racing only one car.
“I’m not sure how fun it is for spectators, but for us, it makes the race quite complex in terms of who you are actually fighting.”
Stella concluded that beating Leclerc might’ve been possible, but the team wanted to try to finish on the podium, and he is happy McLaren stuck with that decision.
“I don’t think today it was possible to do much more, to finish on a podium in particular. Maybe with Lando if we had given up attempting to finish on a podium, we could have finished ahead of Leclerc.
“That is, if anything, the only opportunity, in hindsight, that could have come to us, but it would have meant giving up a podium finish, which we were not ready to do.”