McLaren trio go deep into the strategy decisions taken in F1 Japanese GP, as they note if team orders would have helped to beat Max Verstappen.
McLaren were back in the talking seat with regards to their strategy deployed in F1 Japanese GP. They were beaten by Red Bull and Verstappen on Saturday by the tiniest of margins. The inherent pace meant, they had a chance to beat the Dutchman with two cars at their disposal.
But the degradation game never came. The new surface pushed teams into one stop strategy and it took away the advantage McLaren had of managing its tyres well. After George Russell pitted, the team had to cover him off via Oscar Piastri, who got the chance to pit first over Norris.
They then had only two choices – either pit together with Verstappen and or gamble with an extension, which wasn’t ideal per se. They opted to pit together, leaving Lando Norris and Piastri to catch the Dutchman and pass him on track. It seemed like an easy job, but it wasn’t to be.
Team boss Andrea Stella noted that they needed a pace difference of nearly 0.7s to 0.8s to be able to clear the car ahead. Considering the pace was not too dissimilar and tyres were healthy until the end, it left McLaren with no choice but to accept second and third on the road.
There was a chance of Piastri being allowed to pass Norris in order to clear Verstappen, but that option was not taken as well. Stella noted that it was not clear that the Australian had the pace advantage, since Norris was trying his own strategy to pass the Dutchman.
Pit first –
Norris: “I mean, we obviously planned some things beforehand and we kind of know what to expect. But yeah, hindsight is a wonderful thing. I think probably could have gone longer, could have tried going earlier, yes, but then you’re at risk of Safety Cars and other things. So it’s easy to say, “Yeah, you should have done that.” But if I box three laps earlier or two laps earlier and the Safety Car comes out, then we look stupid. So can’t win them all and we take it on the chin. I think we’ve got areas to work on. High-speed we were very, very strong and I think definitely the strongest car out there. Slow speed—we’re quite a chunk off the Red Bull, and that’s where we lost yesterday in qualifying. So we lost again consistently in the race today. So yeah, a lot of areas we have to try work on.”
Piastri: “I mean, I think obviously the result is not exactly what I wanted, but I think in terms of the pace and the way I achieved the result is what I wanted. So yeah, I think yesterday was the day that kind of dictated your weekend a lot and I didn’t get the most out of the car. So that unfortunately kind of dictated a lot of what I could do today, and that’s led to the result I’ve got. I think on the pit stop timing, Russell had pitted I think the lap before and Leclerc wasn’t that far behind and we didn’t really know what the undercut power was going to be like.
“And you know, we’d gone a fair way into the race on the Mediums anyway. So I think from my side there wasn’t anything that was obviously wrong with what we did. And then at the end, yeah, I said what I felt. Clearly the team were happy with the way things were. I mean, if I was in Lando’s position, I would also be pretty happy with the way things were. So that’s fine. Just said what I felt in the car and yeah, that’s how we want to go racing.”
Stella: “We could have, but it is unclear whether we would have. I think pitting Lando would have meant that we could not pit Oscar, and this would have been a problem for Oscar, who would have waited and this would have been a problem with the cars that had just pitted, especially Russell, who we needed to cover. I’m sure our two drivers will have commented themselves that their qualifying laps were not the best laps in qualifying in their careers. Clearly, when Max elevates the game so much, you need to nail laps in qualifying and you need to bring home any possible millisecond. Yesterday, it was indeed a matter of milliseconds, with 0.043-0.045 seconds between P3 and P1.
“Ultimately, I think the qualifying laps yesterday in Q3 were even more of a determinant factor than anything that happened today in the race. I think to win a race like these you need perfect execution. In hindsight, the gap to Red Bull in qualifying and also this gap was the same when we measured in practice sessions because I invite everyone in this room in practice session, always remember that 10 kilos of fuel at the circuit is a tenth and a half, and engine modes can be several, tenth to a second, so for us it was very clear that Verstappen was close, we thought we had one tenth and one tenth and a half advantage which was going on until perhaps the final set in Q3. So, I think when it is a matter of milliseconds, everyone always retains the possibility to say I could have done better here and there but this is a matter of milliseconds.
“I don’t want this matter of milliseconds to outshadow a weekend that is overall still quite positive. I think for Lando and Oscar in terms of the points they scored even for their championship quest and it’s positive for the team. Then we know that we to beat Max and Red Bull we need to operate at the highest standard but also we need to operate consistently. And I think when you might have won but you don’t win and you are P2 and P3 is still a robust way of going racing, and I think this will be will pay off at the end of the season.”
Would have cleared Verstappen if team orders –
Piastri: “I mean, it was too difficult. I think I needed the straight to be about another 100 metres longer and then maybe I could’ve had a small chance. But I got close a couple of times, but never close enough to do anything realistically. So yeah, I feel like I had strong pace, but just not quite enough to be able to do anything. And yeah, with the dirty air, once you get so close, it’s very difficult to stay so close. So yeah, I think the chance of anything happening realistically was pretty slim.”
Stella: “I don’t think it is so clear that Oscar was faster. I think Lando was trying to get in Max’s slipstream even closer, but anytime you went below one second, then there was a significant loss of grip. So then Lando was doing a little bit of elastic, trying to cool down a bit his tyres, going again. So I don’t think it is a situation that we should judge at face value in terms of what the pace of the car was. Lando was trying to get close to Verstappen with maximum momentum, but it was difficult.
“It was something we knew right from the start that on this track you need 0.7-0.8 seconds of performance advantage in order to be able to overtake. Normally, this lap time difference may be generated because there is degradation in the tyres. But with the new tarmac, Suzuka has changed the feature of being a high degradation circuit is now being a very low degradation circuit. It was a very easy one-stop with not many strategic options.”
Here’s race start: https://www.formula1.com/en/video/2025-japanese-grand-prix-pole-sitter-verstappen-leads-away-from-norris-and-piastri-on-the-race-start-at-suzuka.1828629145841504098
Here’s McLaren, Red Bull duo on Japanese GP fight
Here’s how F1 Japanese GP panned out
