2025 McLaren F1 Team

[venkyhere]

The Red Bull was too fast to try that this time. It finished 20 seconds down the road from McLaren. That's nearly a free pit stop, whatever strategy they tried.

Agree. Due to pace deficit, the only strategy was to 'wait for SC until impossble anymore'. Max removed the 20second gap in 10 laps. So, had the Mclarens followed the same tyre strategy as Max, we are looking at the 'race win gap' of something like T seconds, where T = (53-38) x [6/(22-4)] + 6 = 11 seconds. This is assuming that the pace deficit on H would be same as the pace deficit on M, that was cumulated as 6 second gap buildup from lap4 to lap22 (and then Max was just maintaining it there despite his tyres starting to go off until he pitted in lap38).
This 'hype' around 19 second win is unrealistic, but even a 11 second gap is a big deal, in 2025 where McL39 is head and shoulders above any other car.

[FittingMechanics]

It got Mclaren the win.
I guess this time preserving the order was more important.

When would you have pitted obe of the drivers? And where would they have come out, in comparison.

And, do you really think that would have got a win?

Just showing that they tried splitting strategies in Hungary and it got them track position (with one car) and the win, there were no guarantees either but they tried.
In Monza they played it safe and lost it safe.

But they didn't split the strategies. Norris and his engineer chose it when they had nothing to lose. It was not a plan to split strategies. In this race, Piastri (and Norris) were almost certainly free to pit early but both thought the best chance to win was going long.

The team is not forcing strategies on the drivers. They are briefed about strategy choices and what makes sense and then each driver and engineer call their strategies.

[Ben1980]

The fastest strategy was Medium to hard. Clearly. If Oscar wanted to do that, Lando would do it aswell. Neither are going to try anything different.

[daren_p]

The Red Bull was too fast to try that this time. It finished 20 seconds down the road from McLaren. That's nearly a free pit stop, whatever strategy they tried.

To be fair, the strategy they choose likely made that gap much larger vs if they went med to hard. While they were talking during the race about those that had switched to the hard weren't setting great lap times, we've seen this before where other teams can't get the hards to work & when the McLaren puts them on, the car comes alive. I can understand the gamble but the swap to hards may have given them a better chance (how far behind was Norris when Max pitted, ~5 sec?)

[venkyhere]

I can understand the gamble but the swap to hards may have given them a better chance (how far behind was Norris when Max pitted, ~5 sec?)

No it wouldn't have given them a better chance. The laptimes of Norris on S was similar to the laptimes of Max on H (maybe just 2-3 tenths in favour of Norris). The RB21 simply had better race pace, the Mclaren on H wouldn't have gotten closer. In the dying stages of the M tyre, Max's lead dropped from 6 to 5.3 over 12 laps or so before he pitted - that was like half a tenth per lap. On fresh H, no chance. McLaren did the right thing by waiting for the SC/VSC/red until it was impossible anymore.

[daren_p]

I can understand the gamble but the swap to hards may have given them a better chance (how far behind was Norris when Max pitted, ~5 sec?)

No it wouldn't have given them a better chance. The laptimes of Norris on S was similar to the laptimes of Max on H (maybe just 2-3 tenths in favour of Norris). The RB21 simply had better race pace, the Mclaren on H wouldn't have gotten closer. In the dying stages of the M tyre, Max's lead dropped from 6 to 5.3 over 12 laps or so before he pitted - that was like half a tenth per lap. On fresh H, no chance. McLaren did the right thing by waiting for the SC/VSC/red until it was impossible anymore.

As they never ran the H in the race we don't know that for sure. Different operating windows, different capacity to push the tires, were they saving, etc.