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McLaren's "poor decision making" has "left too many points on the table"
McLaren's Italian Grand Prix performance will be heavily reviewed by the team at the factory. But it will not be because of their pace, with McLaren once again showing themselves as the team to beat at the front of the grid. However, decisions that were made by the team on the pit wall allowed Oscar Piastri to finish ahead of Lando Norris instead of prioritising the latter in his drivers' title bid. That "indecision" will cost McLaren, says former F1 mechanic Marc Prestley.
After locking out the front row at Monza in qualifying, it was the perfect opportunity for Norris to close the then-70-point gap on Max Verstappen, who started way done in P7. However, after failing to make a decision on whether to prioritise Norris in his title charge, it allowed Oscar Piastri to pull off an audacious lap 1 move, impacting Norris and meaning he could only finish in P3 behind his teammate, and he could only close the gap to Verstappen to 62 points.
Norris has lost "a sizeable number of points" because of "poor" decisions
Analysing the Grand Prix at Monza on his YouTube channel, former McLaren mechanic Priestley said there were at least two moments of madness from McLaren: "If you're McLaren, you can look at two particular moments. One was that opening lap, and that comes down to giving the drivers' very clear instructions. And then towards the end of the race, they could have swapped their drivers around. They would have both finished second and third, but it could have been Lando in second and Oscar in third, and there would not have been anything wrong with doing that."
It is also not the first time that swapping drivers has caused controversy at McLaren. At the Hungarian Grand Prix, Oscar Piastri was leading and was on his way to his maiden F1 win with a fine performance. However, he was overtaken by Norris during the second round of pit stops, and although Norris was told to give the place back, it looked like he would not until just a few laps to go. But if McLaren held firm and kept Norris in P1, there were more points on offer to close that gap in the drivers' championship.
Priestley continued, believing that McLaren have made a poor decision to not prioritise Norris already in 2024: "Had they chosen to prioritise Norris, that would have gained him another three points on Max Verstappen. Now, we already know that they have lost seven points earlier in the season when they had those shenanigans of trying to swap drivers around early on in the season in Hungary. That is now a sizable number of points that are starting to stack up that have been lost, that have been left on the table through either indecision or poor decisions."
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