“We also have to be realistic; we are still in this fight because of the failures of others, not because of – if you look at the whole season – what we have done.”
Max Verstappen’s words on Thursday evening seem all the more poignant in the aftermath of a Qatar Grand Prix in which he beat both McLaren drivers to victory – or rather, McLaren beat himself.
The race was there for the taking for Oscar Piastri’s side of the garage. A good start from pole position and no major threat from Verstappen behind him, despite Dutchman Lando Norris jumping off the line and taking second place. Red Bull was not expected to have the race pace to overhaul a McLaren, especially on a track that is so difficult to overtake.
But when Nico Hulkenberg and Pierre Gasly tangled at the start of the seventh lap and the safety car was deployed, McLaren not only left the door open, but pushed it wide open and waved Verstappen through.
Every car still in the race came into the pits during that safety car period. Any car, except a McLaren, that is.
“That’s an interesting move,” Verstappen thought to himself in the Red Bull cockpit.
“I asked, ‘What are we doing?’” Piastri said. “Because we were getting pretty close to the pit entrance and I hadn’t gotten a call yet.
“If you don’t get a call straight away when the safety car comes out, there are probably discussions going on about what to do. In that situation you have to trust the team because they have a lot more information than the driver in the car about where holes are and things like that. In that scenario I have to trust what the team decides.”
“When I was told that everyone made a pit stop, except me, Lando and [Esteban] Ocon, and when Ocon pitted on the next lap, I knew we were in trouble.”
Some problems can be seen as an understatement. McLaren failed to take advantage of a cheap pit stop, left itself vulnerable to breaking into traffic by a huge margin to try to catch up on race pace, and handed Verstappen a faultless victory.
“Speechless… I have no words,” Piastri said on the team radio afterwards.
Fortunately, team boss Andrea Stella is rarely speechless and offered an explanation of what McLaren was thinking at the time.
“Effectively today we had to allow one pit stop to a rival who was fast, so obviously we did that for a reason,” said Stella. “The reason was that we didn’t want to end up in traffic after the pit stop, but it was clear that on lap seven all the other cars and teams had a different opinion about a safety car. Everyone went to the pits and this ultimately made our failure to be wrong from a race outcome point of view.”
“Because Verstappen was fast and also because the tire degradation was low, this decision was ultimately significantly punishing because Oscar was clearly in control of the race and deserved to win it, and we also lost the podium.”
On the one occasion – just one occasion – when an empty pit lane spells disaster, McLaren manages to make full use of the gap. Peter Fox/Getty Images
Norris was philosophical as he saw his race limited to fourth place, realistically losing just one position – and therefore three points – from where he was running before the pit stop decision. Since he would lose ten points to Piastri at that stage, his lead seemed to be twelve points anyway.
But Piastri saw off a win that would have boosted his own title hopes after a run of difficult form, admitting frustration was “quite high” after closing the gap to just 16 points.
“And that’s saying a lot considering the last few races I’ve done!” he said. “Obviously we didn’t do well today, which is a shame because the whole weekend went very, very well. We had a lot of pace. I felt like I was riding well, so yeah, it’s quite painful.”
The Qatar mistake comes straight after both McLarens were disqualified from the Las Vegas Grand Prix, opening the door for Verstappen to reduce a 42-point deficit to 24 points in the title race. He has since halved it again, but Stella insists the recent failures could be seen as growing pains for McLaren if it can learn from its mistakes and get over the line with one of its drivers in Abu Dhabi.
“I think in terms of the misjudgment, it’s something that we’ll have to review and discuss internally,” Stella said. “We will have to assess a number of factors, such as whether there was some bias in the way we were thinking that led us as a group to think that not all cars would necessarily pit.
“There are sometimes some objective reasons and sometimes there are some biases in the way you think. We will have to go through the assessment in a very thorough way, but what is important is that we do it as usual in a way that is constructive and analytical.
“I think already after Vegas we had the opportunity – and I was very proud of the team – to see how strong the no-blame culture is at McLaren, how much our culture is a culture of progress, a culture of continuous improvements.
“Racing is tough, racing can give you hard lessons, but this is the history of champions. I worked with Michael Schumacher; we won several titles together. We are all thinking about the titles now, but after Vegas I thought how much pain he had to go through, for example when Michael started his experience at Ferrari. This is just the history of Formula 1; this is the true nature of racing.”
“We are disappointed, but… once we start the review, we will become even more determined to learn from our lessons, adapt and be stronger as a team – [to] Make sure that this phenomenal, great opportunity that we have to compete for the Drivers’ Championship and be the one that will actually stop Verstappen’s dominance in this period of Formula 1, we want to tackle it at the best of ourselves.
“I’m looking forward to the next race and I look forward to a strong response from our team.”
The response will have to be strong, as Verstappen and Red Bull have taken advantage of almost every opening McLaren had left in the second half of this season, and could take away a title that would mean McLaren losing it as much as Verstappen winning it.
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