McLaren boss Andrea Stella has admitted the team didn’t think the one stop that Lando Norris executed to win Formula 1‘s Hungarian Grand Prix had been “possible”.
Norris has gone into the summer break on a high as he edged Oscar Piastri in a gripping end to the race at the Hungaroring to cut his team-mate’s lead to nine points.
The Briton had lined up third on the grid, but he dropped two spots at the start when Piastri’s move to shield the inside line compromised his run into the opening turn.
But while he regained the place on Fernando Alonso’s Aston Martin with ease, Norris was tucked up behind George Russell until the Mercedes driver boxed on Lap 21.
With Norris having lost sizeable ground to Charles Leclerc and Piastri ahead, McLaren opted to extend his opening stint until Lap 31 as he took the option to one stop.
That ensured he seized the lead when Leclerc and then Piastri pitted a second time, the latter emerging over 12 seconds behind but with newer rubber at his disposal.
Piastri chased down Norris’ margin to get within DRS range with five laps to go, but the Australian could not pass his team-mate, who headed McLaren’s 200th F1 win.
“Our baseline strategy today was a two-stop strategy, we didn’t think necessarily that the one-stop was possible,” Stella told media including Motorsport Week.
“So with Oscar we tried to go on a good, deterministic two-stop strategy, trying to pass Leclerc in the first stop.
“Then we tried to extend in the second stop to have a tyre delta, in order to have those few tenths of a second to be able to pass Leclerc, and this did work.
“When it comes to Lando and the one-stop strategy, when we extended, leaving Lando out, we didn’t think that the one-stop would have been possible still.
“But credit to Lando, he managed to put together some very strong sectors and lap times, with tyres that were relatively used.
“So we somehow convinced ourselves that the one-stop was starting to get in the game, as we progressed with the first stage.
“It wasn’t like entering the race with a one or a two-stop, and we would have picked being then equivalent, we thought that the two-stop would be the dominant strategy today.”
McLaren explains Piastri strategy in Hungary
Stella has revealed that the one stop not being in McLaren’s pre-race thought triggered the team’s attempt at an undercut on pole-sitter Leclerc with Piastri on Lap 18.
“I think in terms of the two-stop for Oscar and the stopping time, is that also his tyres were starting to suffer a little bit in the first stint,” he assessed.
“It wasn’t clear what the power of the undercut would have been, but it was worth a try and even extending when you have tyres that don’t behave very well, not necessarily will make the extension something that will reward you.
“So we wanted to give a first go, and trying to pass Leclerc, we knew that there would have been a second go later on in the race, and at the time, definitely the one-stop for Lando was outside of any card, because like I said before, is an option from a strategic point of view, that we discovered while we were staying out with Lando, and we saw that he was in condition to put together some competitive advantage.”
Stella also dismissed the notion that an earlier second stop would have granted Piastri a better chance to pass Norris in the closing stages.
“We wanted to give Oscar enough of a tyre delta to pass Leclerc, but also to have a fair chance on Lando, because that would have meant being on an optimal two-stop,” he explained.
“So we wanted to make sure that, thinking about Leclerc, we were not deviating too much of an optimal two-stop, because that would have been unfair to Oscar in relation to his competition with Lando, which was fairer, and we also checked with Oscar what his preference was, he certainly wanted to have an opportunity to win the race, and we thought that with enough tyre delta to Leclerc, Oscar would have had a chance in Lando.
“So I think actually, let me say, that the race unfolded pretty much as we hoped it would unfold in terms of tyre behaviour, which means tyres that lasted enough for us to stop when we decided to pit Lando out, and also, in the second stint, tyres and car pace that would have allowed Oscar to pass Leclerc, and then actually the two strategies proved to be quite equivalent.”
READ MORE – Lando Norris resists Oscar Piastri to head McLaren 1-2 in F1 Hungarian GP
