Autobayng News Team
McLaren team principal Andrea Stella said the team is letting its drivers down after a strategy error in Losail handed victory to Red Bull’s Max Verstappen.
The team opted not to pit either race leader Oscar Piastri or third-placed Lando Norris when the Safety Car appeared on lap seven. Every other team brought both its cars in, and Piastri fell to second place while Norris took fourth.
Stella said the team opted not to pit as it expected only some of the field behind would come in and they wanted to avoid the risk of encountering traffic.
“The thinking was that traffic might have been a consideration, but in reality traffic was not an element because everyone decided to pit,” he told the official Formula 1 channel. “So when this is the decision of all the cars behind you, actually that makes pitting definitely the right thing to do under a Safety Car at lap seven with this particular situation where you have a maximum of 25 laps.
“At the same time, we wanted to have enough flexibility in the race in case of another Safety Car, which would have paid off very well, but there was no other Safety Car. So the only time in which we could have taken the reduction of the time loss in a pit stop was actually at lap seven, but we decided otherwise, so something definitely that we will have to review.”
The team’s error comes one week after both its cars were disqualified following the Las Vegas Grand Prix. Stella said errors like these have cost their drivers dearly in the championship.
“We are disappointed because we are haemorrhaging points in a way in the last two events,” he said. “Our drivers are doing a very good job and if anything it’s the team that needs to elevate the game and make sure that we give our drivers the possibility to capitalise on their great driving.”
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He said it is vital the team sharpens up its performance before next week’s championship-deciding race at Yas Marina.
“We need to just start to look forward, get all the learning that we receive from racing. But at the same time we need to think forward, prepare, remain confident.
“We have a fast car, we have two great drivers, we need to use all the information, everything that we learned from all we do to make sure that we execute perfect race weekends. I think we have all the ingredients to be successful.
“It’s still in our hands, but it requires us to do a better job than what we have done in the last two races.”
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