MCLAREN IN LAS VEGAS: A DISQUALIFICATION BORN FROM A MISJUDGED CALCULATED RISK

In the span of just a couple of hours, the Las Vegas Grand Prix went from being a potentially decisive moment in the championship to throwing everything back into question. The disqualification of both McLarens will be debated for a long time — especially since it comes in the wake of the Brazil revelations about alleged anti-wear floor systems.

Let me be clear: I’m convinced the MCL39 really does use a device of that kind. Not because it’s a scandal, but because it’s practically an open secret that several teams exploit solutions designed to reduce plank wear. That’s how Formula 1 works: the teams that make the difference are always the ones pushing the regulations to the limit — and sometimes a little beyond. There’s no point pretending otherwise.

Does that make McLaren “illegal”? In my view, no — or at least not in the traditional sense. If much of the grid is adopting the same workaround and the regulations leave a gray area, then drawing a line between legal and illegal becomes complicated. It’s the same debate we’ve had about flexible wings: everyone can see them flex, but as long as they pass static tests, they’re deemed compliant. End of story.

That said, I’m not convinced this aspect was the main cause of the disqualification.

In my opinion, McLaren simply got the setup wrong. Clearly wrong. Stella is right to mention increased porpoising, but the reality is that the MCL39s were running too low. You only had to watch them on the straights: throughout the race, both papaya cars were consistently scraping the asphalt. A simple example: during Piastri’s overtake on the Visa car after the Virtual Safety Car, his McLaren continues to drag even with DRS open, while Leclerc’s Ferrari immediately stops scraping as soon as the rear wing is fully deployed. The difference was visible to the naked eye.

The problem, however, wasn’t just the setup. The pit wall realized what was happening too late.

For Piastri, it was difficult to intervene given that Leclerc was right on him; but with Norris, there was room to salvage the situation by asking for more pronounced lift-and-coast in the closing stages. We’re talking about millimeters beyond the regulatory limit — nothing that a bit of extra management couldn’t have compensated for. And paradoxically, without even risking second place, given Russell’s clear drop-off in the final laps.

In short, it was a chain of errors: first an overly aggressive setup choice, then a delayed reaction. McLaren can afford it only because Norris still holds a significant championship lead; otherwise, we’d likely be talking about a sporting disaster that would have been hard to justify.

And to think that after the Dutch Grand Prix, many were suggesting the team should go all-in on Piastri. Had McLaren truly followed that path, the Australian might now be clinging to a razor-thin points margin over Verstappen — at best.

Sometimes all it takes is a small detail, or a delay of a few laps, to completely reshape the narrative of a championship. And in Las Vegas, McLaren got a considerable number of details wrong. Perhaps too many.

© Simone Marchetti Cavalieri