F1 News

Stella on why McLaren didn't try the one-stop in Spa

Why did McLaren stick with Norris' strategy? Stella explains

30 July at 15:00
  • Ben Stevens
  • Editor

Lando Norris had a weekend to forget in Spa. Whilst his teammate Oscar Piastri finished third on track (P2 after Russell's disqualification), Norris only managed to finish fifth. This is because McLaren decided to pit Norris later than the drivers around him, which meant he got stuck behind the Red Bull of Max Verstappen. McLaren's team principal Andrea Stella defends this decision. 

Why did McLaren not try the one-stop? 

During the Belgium Grand Prix, George Russell made his one and only pitstop on lap 10. McLaren decided to wait until lap 15 to make their first stop with Norris. On Lap 26, Russell was discussing with the Mercedes team whether to stay out and try the one-stop strategy, a message that was played out on the live broadcast. At this time, Norris was three seconds behind his fellow Brit, with Max Verstappen between them. When asked in the paddock by GPblog and others why McLaren didn't choose to do the same strategy with Norris, this was Stella's response. 

"Potentially. I need to review this one, I have to say." The Italian admitted; "I need to understand if Lando was in the right position to do so because obviously, having extended you tend to lose some positions on the track. For us, the plan with Lando was robust. It's just that we were a little surprised that we could not overtake.

"The other one where we were surprised, and this could be also to do with how good Verstappen is as a driver, he made the medium last in the final stint like not many other drivers managed to do today, and we were just expecting that his tyres would have fallen off, and they didn't. So we thought overtaking Verstappen would have been easy, and it proved not to be the case, so I left it to review whether, with Lando, it would have been a good idea to just follow what Russell was doing."

Had McLaren done the same strategy as Russell, it could have been Norris taking home a win or even a podium after Russell's disqualification. However, he finished behind his title rival Max Verstappen.