F1 News
Windsor slams McLaren for 'ludicrous' mistakes: 'On a different planet'
F1 analyst Peter Windsor is "absolutely shocked" by McLaren's performance at the United States Grand Prix. In his analysis on his YouTube channel, Windsor slammed the team's decisions when Lando Norris overtook Max Verstappen off the track. He firmly blames the pit wall.
Norris was catching up with Verstappen for several laps, and then the two F1 title rivals engaged in a multi-lap duel. On lap 52, Norris eventually got ahead of the Red Bull driver, but the stewards handed out a five-second penalty because Norris made the move outside of the white lines. Norris couldn't advance five seconds up the road and ended up being classified behind Verstappen, which means the Dutchman extended his lead in the World Championship with five Grand Prix weekends remaining.
Windsor finds McLaren mistake 'ridiculous'
Norris checked on the radio whether he needed to give the place back to Verstappen, but the McLaren team were adamant he didn't need to. Windsor, therefore, believes McLaren made a mistake: "There was always going to be argument about that [overtake]. Lando had the quicker car, his tyres were newer by six laps. He still had a couple of laps to go. He was in DRS all the time. Lando would have got him, I'm sure, by the end of the race. I'm absolutely shocked that McLaren didn't do that," Windsor said.
In fact, it was such a weird situation that Oscar Piastri also got a message in his ear, according to Windsor: "Even Oscar Piastri's engineer was saying to Oscar 'oh they've told Max to speed up because obviously they think he's going to get a penalty'. Just ludicrous stuff. Red Bull didn't think that. Red Bull was saying, speed up, Max, because he's got a five-second penalty and we want to make sure within the five seconds or he's likely to get it. That's what was going on. It seemed like they weren't even on the same planet."
Could Verstappen have picked up a penalty?
Finally, Windsor even argues Verstappen might've picked up a penalty: "It's possible that Max then would have got a penalty for forcing Lando Norris off track. We don't know what would have happened there, but because it was completely covered by the fact that Lando kept his foot in it, and maybe there was more grip off track at that point. Who knows?"
This article has been created in collaboration with Cas van de Kleut
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