A NIGHT ABOUT WRONG DECISIONS

Max Verstappen leaves Qatar with a crucial victory, cutting the gap to Norris down to just twelve points and taking full advantage of McLaren’s pit wall uncertainty. In truth, the race was decided very early on: lap seven, when Hulkenberg was left stranded on track after contact with Gasly — who until that moment had been enjoying an excellent weekend. The resulting Safety Car completely flipped the script, as everyone chose to pit for a “free” stop — except the two McLarens.

From that moment on, it became a race within a race: the papaya cars chasing Verstappen, while the Dutchman displayed a very high pace. He wasn’t quite as quick as Piastri, finally perfectly in sync with the MCL39, but compared to Norris the gap was minimal. And for the record, I don’t believe the Brit had suffered any significant floor damage — he simply didn’t have Oscar’s pace, nothing more. It was still impressive, however, how Lando managed to keep the car under control and avoid running off track, which would have been extremely costly given he had only one track limit violation left (we’ll skip any further commentary on how track limits were handed out in Qatar…).

In my view, though, McLaren’s mistakes weren’t limited to the decision not to pit under the Safety Car. In fact, what convinces me even less are the subsequent calls, particularly regarding Norris. Piastri was in a tricky position when the race was neutralized: in situations like that, it’s truly a 50/50 call, because pitting risks rejoining behind those who stay out — and at Lusail, that risk is extremely high. You can debate it, but keeping him out wasn’t absurd.

The situation was different for Norris: covering Verstappen should have been the absolute priority. Yet it was clear they weren’t going to do that, perhaps in an effort to strictly adhere to internal procedures and possibly convinced they could recover on pure race pace.

The real mistake — at least in my opinion — came at the McLarens’ next pit stops. The medium tire wasn’t holding up: both drivers had reported it, and Verstappen, on hards, was maintaining a solid and consistent pace. In that scenario, it would have made sense for at least one of them to switch to the hard compound, then attack in the final stint on a fresh set of mediums. Not doing so severely limited their strategic options.

And here lies the most critical point for Norris: McLaren waited too long to bring him in for his second stop. He was clearly struggling, already eight seconds behind Piastri, and had no realistic chance of threatening him with an undercut. Pitting earlier would have reduced the time loss to Sainz and Antonelli and allowed him to rejoin with more breathing room — and more laps to exploit his car’s superiority (even though overtaking remained extremely difficult, as seen in the battles behind Alonso).

In the end, Lando was fortunate thanks to Antonelli’s mistake, which spared him more serious damage in the championship fight. But the feeling is that McLaren opted for overly conservative and standardized strategies to avoid favoring one driver over the other. And that makes me smile when I still hear talk of favoritism toward Piastri: when has a driver fighting for a world title late in the season not received at least minimal preferential treatment? And for the second year in a row, no less — because even twelve months ago, McLaren didn’t truly back him.

Despite everything, Norris remains master of his own destiny and can seal the deal in Abu Dhabi, saving the team’s season for the second year running. But this winter, if they truly want to make the final leap, Woking will need to rethink several management dynamics — both on track and on the pit wall.

© Simone Marchetti Cavalieri