2025 McLaren F1 Team

[AR3-GP]

If he said no, I want to.pit now, and not Im fine to continue, are you contending hed be ignored.


It feels like your searching for an outcome.e that I cant see. He was asked, he always had the power to dictate when to pit.

I'm not saying that he would have been ignored. I'm saying that the team didn't support his quest to beat Lando Norris by giving him a strategy that made sense. This is in contrast to Lando Norris being asked and encouraged to do a 1 stop in Hungary that won him the race!

[mwillems]

Oscar made a second stop and Lando chose to stay out. The question you asked was about split strategies.

Oscar stated that the team discussed the strategy options with him both before and during Hungary. He confirmed in media interviews after the race and in discussions at the Dutch Grand Prix that McLaren had checked his preference and kept him involved in the decision-making for the two-stop approach

Oscar had to make a "2nd stop" because Mclaren pitted him too early for a 1 stop simply to chase Leclerc. This is despite Oscar Piastri saying that he doesn't care about Leclerc and to simply cover what Lando does.

We dont hear all the radio, we dont hear what was said before hand and there is tons of missing context.

Oscar has confirmed that the idea it wasnt his choice is wrong and that it fully was.

What is the question here that you are not prepared to ask?

This was about wether they could strategise. They can.

[AR3-GP]

What is the question here that you are not prepared to ask?

This was about wether they could strategise. They can.

The question has already been asked. How does Monza fit? There was no alternate strategy or undercut offered to Oscar Piastri in order to beat Lando Norris. In fact, the opposite occured. Lando Norris had his own strategy protected and they guaranteed that Oscar Piastri would not be allowed to undercut him. So how has Oscar Piastri been allowed to "strategize" here? Lando Norris did it for him...

[mwillems]

If he said no, I want to.pit now, and not Im fine to continue, are you contending hed be ignored.


It feels like your searching for an outcome.e that I cant see. He was asked, he always had the power to dictate when to pit.

I'm not saying that he would have been ignored. I'm saying that the team didn't support his quest to beat Lando Norris by giving him a strategy that made sense. This is in contrast to Lando Norris being asked and encouraged to do a 1 stop in Hungary that won him the race!

I feel like you could have brought us here quicker

I would prefer Oscar to win the WDC. But I dont see the decisions favouring Lando the way you do.

Lando was always going to be encouraged to do the opposite to Oscar. His engineer will be close to him and will have his back and will want Lando to be WDC. Im not sure if it should be expecting their respective lead engineers to be driver agnostic?

[AR3-GP]

Oscar and Lando are not truly free to strategize. Monza shows it. In a competition with two different teams, the driver behind is free to undercut the one ahead at any time. He doesn't share a pitbox with his rival. At Mclaren this is not the case. It is important because now that Oscar is struggling, his strategy if he were from an outside team would be to get in front of Lando by undercutting him and hope to hold the position to the end of the race. At Mclaren, this will hardly be possible as Monza shows. It will end up deciding the outcome of the championship in an artificial way.

[mwillems]

Oscar and Lando are not truly free to strategize. Monza shows it. In a competition with two different teams, the driver behind is free to undercut the one ahead. At Mclaren this is not the case. So Oscar Piastri is not free to strategize when Lando Norris is ahead. It's artificial. This is important because it's deciding the outcome of the championship between them.

They are free within limits from what I can see.

Was Oscar refused the chance to split strategy?

Would split strategy have helped? I thought Monza tended to be the ace where undercuts helped the least.

I'd need to review again since I don't recall enough to comment on possibility of a solit strategy, but I dont recall this being an option.

[AR3-GP]

Oscar and Lando are not truly free to strategize. Monza shows it. In a competition with two different teams, the driver behind is free to undercut the one ahead. At Mclaren this is not the case. So Oscar Piastri is not free to strategize when Lando Norris is ahead. It's artificial. This is important because it's deciding the outcome of the championship between them.

They are free within limits from what I can see.

Was Oscar refused the chance to split strategy?

Would split strategy have helped? I thought Monza tended to be the ace where undercuts helped the least.

I'd need to review again since I don't recall enough to comment on possibility of a solit strategy, but I dont recall this being an option.

I don't know what Oscar asked or if he was refused. I simply think that the team should have executed a strategy to undercut Lando Norris if they were interested in supporting Piastri's quest to beat Lando Norris that day. Instead we had a staged finish simply because Lando Norris was the first car in the running order. This will be a big disadvantage for a struggling Piastri in the remaining races. If he were in another team, he would have more latitude in strategy to beat Lando Norris despite starting behind him.

[Darth-Piekus]

At the end of the day Mclaren shot themselves in the foot by not choosing to secure the WDC with one of the two and if Max overturns a 100 point difference and gets the WDC, Mclaren will be a laughing stock.

[FittingMechanics]

The car ahead has priority. So you can't strategize by undercutting the car ahead because the car ahead can choose to not allow that undercut. At least you can't do that without the car ahead knowing about it and deciding whether they want to do it or not. But you can overcut if the car ahead pits, then nothing stops you from going long.

Any complaints about Oscar strategies can be directed to Oscar and Tom Stallard. They are clearly choosing them on the spot (same as Lando) and it's just that Oscar is worse at tire wear so usually chooses a strategy that requires less tire management. They also prefer to pick Lando's strategy if Lando goes first. Lando being behind is more open to hail mary strategies.

Btw it is not guaranteed that Norris is ahead, he was behind Piastri in quite a few races and had to accept alternate strategies or just follow Piastri around.

[FittingMechanics]

I don't know what Oscar asked or if he was refused. I simply think that the team should have executed a strategy to undercut Lando Norris if they were interested in supporting Piastri's quest to beat Lando Norris that day.

They are not allowed to undercut the other car without other car clearly giving up their right of first pitstop.

They are not running this as two completely separate team. The car ahead has priority and can't be undercut without notification.

If they didn't do it this way then both cars would probably try to pit much earlier than required, just to cover off undercut threat from behind. It's a recipe for bad strategies. This way they at least can run to some rough target lap and then do their pitstops without undercutting.

[FittingMechanics]

At the end of the day Mclaren shot themselves in the foot by not choosing to secure the WDC with one of the two and if Max overturns a 100 point difference and gets the WDC, Mclaren will be a laughing stock.

The way it looks they choose well not to choose one, Piastri seems to be in much worse form in last races and if Lando moved for him it would have been even worse.

[AR3-GP]

I don't know what Oscar asked or if he was refused. I simply think that the team should have executed a strategy to undercut Lando Norris if they were interested in supporting Piastri's quest to beat Lando Norris that day.

They are not allowed to undercut the other car without other car clearly giving up their right of first pitstop.

They are not running this as two completely separate team. The car ahead has priority and can't be undercut without notification.

That is my point. This staged racing is now going to hurt the championship leader in the last 5 weekends. Piastri is struggling now. So he may find himself 2nd in the running order more often. If he were in a separate team, he would be allowed maximum latitude to get ahead of Lando Norris. Now he won't be. If Mclaren continue to refuse to allow them to operate as separate teams, then the season finale will be artificial.

[mwillems]

I don't know what Oscar asked or if he was refused. I simply think that the team should have executed a strategy to undercut Lando Norris if they were interested in supporting Piastri's quest to beat Lando Norris that day.

They are not allowed to undercut the other car without other car clearly giving up their right of first pitstop.

They are not running this as two completely separate team. The car ahead has priority and can't be undercut without notification.

That is my point. This staged racing is now going to become great disadvantage of the championship leader in the last 5 weekends. Piastri is struggling now. So he may find himself 2nd in the running order more often. If he were in a separate team, he would be allowed maximum latitude to get ahead of Lando Norris. Now he won't be. If Mclaren continue to refuse to allow them to operate as separate teams, then the season finale will be artificial.

Isn't this normal?

When i said within limits, this is a limit. 1st driver gets 1st choice. Its not staged it's earnt.

Earlier in the season Oscar used well executed stops to.ensure wins.

If he doesnt win now its because he wasnt good enough to be ahead.



The only strategy calls the irks me was Oscar giving Lando a tow at Hungary in Q3. That was for the team, but it was a big factor in Lando finishing ahead.

[AR3-GP]

Isn't this normal?

When i said within limits, this is a limit. 1st driver gets 1st choice. Its not staged it's earnt.

It wouldn't exist if Piastri was in a different team competing for the title against Norris. I think Mclaren should allow the two garages to go their separate ways in these last 5 weekends. Otherwise Piastri isn't really being given a chance to defend himself properly.

[mwillems]

Isn't this normal?

When i said within limits, this is a limit. 1st driver gets 1st choice. Its not staged it's earnt.

It wouldn't exist if Piastri was in a different team competing for the title against Norris. I think Mclaren should allow the two garages to go their separate ways in these last 5 weekends. Otherwise Piastri isn't really being given a chance to defend himself.

But they aren't in separate teams, and it will only harm Oscar if he doesnt do better on Saturday and Sunday.

Max has a good run at the title so it will be an exciting end.