2025 McLaren F1 Team

[mwillems]

Well that was random.

[AR3-GP]

Does anyone know why Piastri was on mediums and Norris was on hards? Seems a bit odd. Was Oscar given the option for hards? Was Norris given the option of mediums?

[mwillems]

Oscar spoke after the race about his decision to take the mediums. I didn't hear the radio conversation. He still said it was the right call, but I don't know if he knew how many offs Lando had.

[Watto]

Does anyone know why Piastri was on mediums and Norris was on hards? Seems a bit odd. Was Oscar given the option for hards? Was Norris given the option of mediums?

From Oscar it was something that was discussed pre race if he was behind he said he probably would have taken the hards.

Am not sure if the option was given to him when it came for the pit stop. But from Oscar it was discussed pre race and the mediums were the right choice for him

[Tvetovnato]

It was not offered to Piastri in the actual race, they said mediums to him and didn’t put hards on the table for him. I thought it was bit odd given the equal treatment philosophy and that they would rather see another team win than disadvantage one of their drivers to the other. It would have been quite a talking point if it actually worked out for Lando in the end.

But Piastri didn’t seem bothered by it and said the mediums was the safest choice at that point. And it’s good for us spectators of this intriguing fight to know that different tyre choices is a factor they can play with.

[CjC]

It was in their pre-race plans.
Whoever was ahead pits first for mediums. The driver behind had the option to double stack for mediums or pit a lap later for hards.

I think we should give credit to McLaren for keeping it fair but also giving the driver behind a different option- something which we never saw from Mercedes in the Hamilton/ Bottas era, we often heard Bottas asking for a different compound but they always gave him the same as whatever they fitted to Lewis’ car

[FittingMechanics]

Not sure why are we talking about offering hards to Oscar. It is obvious everyone (every team) thought mediums were the best tire at that moment. McLaren thought so as well. Norris was offered hards as a gamble to maybe manage to catch/overtake Oscar if his tires go off. It was not thought to be superior strategy so it was not offered or used by anyone else.

It is likely that Norris would have done better if he just double stacked onto mediums (or hards). He would have had a smaller gap to Oscar but that would increase risk to 1-2.

Interestingly, the fact that Pirelli brought two step harder hard probably meant this was a much harder strategy to pull off. His tires were much more durable than it was needed but had less grip. 1 step harder tire would remove durability concern but would offer more grip than this tire.

[AR3-GP]

It was in their pre-race plans.
Whoever was ahead pits first for mediums. The driver behind had the option to double stack for mediums or pit a lap later for hards.

Is there a source for this?

[CjC]

It was in their pre-race plans.
Whoever was ahead pits first for mediums. The driver behind had the option to double stack for mediums or pit a lap later for hards.

Is there a source for this?

‘Regarding the strategy, Stella suggested it was Norris' decision not to double stack behind Piastri and also his choice to use the hard rubber in the hopes of having a tyre advantage later in the race.’

https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/arti ... NjX5DmDbA9

[Seerix]

As far as I know, the default strategy was both cars on mediums, same as every other car on grid.
Lando was called into box on the same lap as Osc 'box to overtake', but they cancelled it as Oscar went it. Then towards the end of next lap, when Lando was supposed to box, Will asked him 'do you want hards? we'll take them to the end, I need answer quickly' and Lando said yes.
Considering hards were two steps harded than mediums, I think they were pretty hard (no pun intended ) to keep in the right spot in cold conditions and were therefore considered inferior strategy by every team.

[BMMR61]

The strategies made perfect sense. Arguably though, getting Lando to double stack made some sense given how quick the track evolved. The team had only Hamilton's mini-sector times on new mediums for part of sector 2 to decide they were working fine. The decision to let Lando choose an alternate strategy was fair, it was his best chance of coming back to Oscar. Lando did pretty well to make them work as they were two compounds harder than the mediums and the track still had damp patches, remember this was the hardest compound on a cool, damp day. People forget this when criticising his errors, he was likely driving absolutely on the ragged edge on tyres that weren't ideal.