Lando Norris was hard on himself after losing out on potential F1 British GP win, as Oscar Piastri and Andrea Stella add further on the strategy.
It was seemingly going well for the McLaren pair in F1 British GP especially after Norris and Piastri were 1-2 when the rain arrived at the scene. It was then that they started to lose out. The initial call to pit on the intermediate was correct.
However, they opted not to double stack which cost Piastri time from which he never recovered. He even dropped behind the Ferrari of Carlos Sainz, who was not in the fight as such. With Norris, they hung on well in the fight for the win then after.
But the switch to slick tyres and the decision to go for the soft compound undone any of their chances. From lead, the Brit dropped behind Lewis Hamilton – a slow stop only compounded their loss from where he never recovered.
Max Verstappen’s choice of hard tyre worked in his favour to clear Norris in the end. The Brit was mellow post-race with another win chance gone. While team boss Stella agreed that in hindsight they could have done things differently, but he wasn’t sure of a win.
There was a good chance that on the medium, Norris would have held off Verstappen, but Stella reckoned that there was no guarantee of it. The Brit was certain of a lost win, but he knows that there will be plenty more chances against his rivals this year.
“I’ve heard that [lost win] a lot lately, so I hate saying it again but yeah, I mean, so many things were going well,” said Norris. “We threw it away in the final stop. So one lap, but also I don’t think it was a lap. I think even if I boxed on the perfect lap, our decision to go on to the Softs was the wrong one.
“I think Lewis still would have won no matter what. So two calls from our side cost us everything today. So, especially here, pretty disappointing. As for fights, I mean, Oscar as well. Oscar and George. There’s many of us in the fight. So, yeah, I expect it to be good battles, I’m sure. Ferrari, at some point, will get their act together and come back.
“But clearly we also weren’t quick enough in Silverstone. I think when it was completely dry, the Mercedes was a lot quicker, and in mixed conditions, maybe we seemed a bit better, so we have work to do. We still had a weekend where we’ve clearly been the quickest. We’ve always been there or thereabouts, but never the car, and yeah, I think we need to keep working as a team.
“I need to keep working on my own stuff. And just try and put it together because there are still so many positives. There are so many good things and so many things in place. But frustrating when a few times this season we’ve thrown away something that should have been ours,” summed up Norris.
On Piastri’s side, the Australian was disappointed with the end result but doesn’t blame McLaren for the strategy call. It was collective but notes that they will have to review still to be certain the next time a situation like that arises.
It was a tough pill to take but one from which he can grown on. “I don’t think it gets any harder than that,” said Piastri. “I think there’s some things to review. I think double-stacking would have been the right call, but hindsight’s a wonderful thing. I think we need to see if we had any information that told us that was going to be a better choice.
“Obviously a little bit painful given the gap. As soon as I went past pit entry, the last couple of corners were very, very tough. 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 with him. I knew it was the wrong call basically instantly.
“I think we just need to review if we put enough weight on that decision. Obviously when the two cars are close like that you lose a lot of time doing a double-stack. The conditions were getting trickier but it was very, very hard to judge. It was only really half of the track that was really difficult until the lap that I stayed out and then the whole track became difficult.
“So very difficulty for everybody involved, but, in hindsight, double-stacking would have given a very good chance of winning. Other than that, I think every other decision we absolutely nailed in that race. Me and Lando put ourselves in a great position getting to the lead. I think the decision in hindsight to put the medium on was the right call.
“We were the quickest at the end, so just a shame that we weren’t in a better position in the middle of the race. I knew if I got in front then it would be my priority in the pits so that’s why I say it’s one of the hardest decisions because I’m trying to get the lead, give myself priority. The team don’t know what car’s going to come in first to the pits.
“It’s just incredibly tough for everybody. I was obviously frustrated at that point, but I knew that there was rain still coming. After the first couple of laps I could see that the cars ahead had clearly used up their inters a lot in the first couple of laps, so I was actually optimistic at that point. But then I hit the same wall as everyone else.
“I knew we would have more chances later in the race with getting back onto the slicks, [with] the choice of tyres we had. So I knew there’d be more opportunities, so I tried to give ourselves the best opportunity of trying to win,” summed up Piastri, who ended up fifth eventually after the retirement of George Russell.
Here’s what Stella said:
Piastri pit stop –
Stella: “Very fair, not only he should have pushed. But we should have pushed harder for the double stack, because by delaying Oscar stop by one lap, we lost much more time than the time we would have lost in a double stack pit stop. So in hindsight, that was the right thing to do stop both cars at the same time. And we will take the learning from this experience, and we will do better next time. You summarised was to what was going on in terms of assessment very well, these are the two things that you need to weight. We were a little greedy that we didn’t want to accept that we would have lost time with the double stack. But effectively, 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. Oscar would have been in a really strong position, like at least as strong as Lando, in terms of opportunities to win the race.”
Norris’ stop, strategy –
Stella: “With Lando, the right thing to do was definitely to pit at the same time. But we wanted to have a very safe transition of the dry tyres and we lost a bit of time as well at the pit stop. So like, we thought that with one lap more we could still keep the lead in fairness. [The slow stop] was enough [to lose the lead]. But this doesn’t guarantee that then going to corner three and four, you would still be ahead. So like I say, this is another one in which with the benefit of hindsight, if I can do the race again, I would pit at the same time as Hamilton and Verstappen. Obviously this would leave the question as to which tyres open. Pitting one lap later gives you the possibility to observe what your competitors do. And I think the going on soft wasn’t the right word for us. In fact, we degraded the tyres too much to be able to retain the position on Verstappen. In fairness Lewis did a really good job of making the soft tyres last the entire stint. And achieved the victory.
“Regarding no medium, 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. But kind of the sense of asking with Lando, deciding with Lando was, will it be tricky going on C2 compound in these conditions? But 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. 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 doubt it. And this led us to follow this direction which in hindsight was incorrect.”
Other influence on strategy, was medium winnable strategy –
Stella: “Definitely. The fact that Lewis went on soft is one of the disturbing factors towards the fact that we actually were going on medium(remark: he probably means soft here), if that makes sense. I think there the bet was will the soft make it to the end? And how much gap will soft gain at the start in transition compared to going there on medium? Because 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 the wheel on the wet patch, and you lose the car? So I think in this respect we… I think we were too influenced by the fact that Lewis went on soft. I think we should have been more like, ‘Medium is the right tyre’. But winning was not guaranteed because Lewis managed to keep the tyres in good shape. So like, you have to overtake. I think we could have got in the gearbox of Lewis. But overtaking is a slightly different matter.”
Early decision of slick to intermediate –
Stella: “The slick to intermediate definitely like in that case, the driver has… like he knows better than us in a way what is going on. And I think even in that case, though, the right time to pit, with Lando, it was the right time. And we should have just forced Oscar to say like, ‘Sorry, mate, it’s going to be double stack’. Okay? Because we are asking too much of the drivers. They should be doing a good job driving, keeping on track on right tyres in wet conditions and, by the way, process the whole timing thing – that’s why there’s people that should help the drivers. And in this case, we have to say that we missed some opportunities.”
Needs to be proactive with strategy –
Stella: “That’s right. And please don’t think that the decision to go on soft is because Lando said ‘we should go soft’. Like, we have the possibility to make the call, we have more information, we are 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% my responsibility and the people, 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 to say ‘no, we go medium’, because the soft may not make it to the end.”
Solid first stint but –
Stella: “100%. there’s this narrative around that McLaren is the best car. But we make good use of the car! Right? So I would like to emphasize the good work of the people that prepare the car. Like we come to practice sessions and the car performs well. And we build well through the weekend. But we saw today that not necessarily we have the fastest car. Because in the first stint where things were pretty regular, Mercedes, they were… they were going! It’s part of the positives. The team are working very well. And when you race for the front positions, it just becomes much more visible when you still have some work to do.”
Here’s Max Verstappen losing out to Lando Norris: https://www.formula1.com/en/video/2024-british-grand-prix-norris-sweeps-past-verstappen-to-retake-p3.1803932110906403793
Here’s Max Verstappen retaking the place: https://www.formula1.com/en/video/2024-british-grand-prix-verstappen-powers-past-norris-for-p2.1803935535997055584
Here’s Lewis Hamilton retaking lead from Lando Norris: https://www.formula1.com/en/video/2024-british-grand-prix-hamilton-re-takes-the-lead-after-pitting-ahead-of-norris.1803934075419823982
Here’s Christian Horner on McLaren’s strategy
Here’s how F1 British GP panned out
Here’s first look at F1 movie + say from Lewis Hamilton
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