McLaren team principal Andrea Stella says the order of the final pit stops that led to a tense ending to the Hungarian Grand Prix was to reduce the chances of a pit crew error proving costly.
Lando Norris was running second on the road to teammate Oscar Piastri – who had led from Turn 1 – but was given priority to stop first for the final stint of the race, with the powerful undercut resulting in him taking the lead. Norris debated with the team before giving the place back to Piastri in the closing stages, and with Norris having had a relatively comfortable buffer to Lewis Hamilton in third place Stella says it was one the team didn’t want getting any smaller.
“We knew that by going first with Lando that could have been the situation, but we wouldn’t have done it if we weren’t sure that this would be fixed,” Stella said. “I think because we are at the Hungaroring and because it was so hot, there were two variables that we really wanted to get right.
“The first one, we didn’t want to pit too early because the tires were degrading a lot and we didn’t want to run out of tires should [Max] Verstappen become a problem at the end of the race. And therefore, we just wanted to delay the pit stop as much as possible.
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“And the second element is that you can have a problem at the pit stop, so you need to go safe from a pit stop point of view. Do you want to pit only when you have three seconds [safety net]? Because then what happens is that all the pressure goes on the pit crew. And I don’t want in a race [like that] that the responsibility goes to the pit crew.
“I’d rather take the responsibility at the pitwall, secure the P1, P2 and then we manage the situation between the pitwall and the drivers because we talk about this situation and we know how we go about this situation.”
Norris emerged from his final stop over four seconds clear of Hamilton, but Stella says an extra lap for Hamilton on fresh tires would have made that gap smaller and added risk that wasn’t necessary.
“I just did not want to have a situation at the pit stop where there’s a problem with a nut, there’s a problem with the execution that puts us behind a Mercedes or a Ferrari. We have seen with Verstappen what can happen [colliding with Hamilton] and Verstappen would have had the tires much fresher than the guys ahead. So I think we would be talking something else if that was the case like it happened to Verstappen.
“So I know that for the media, I know that for watching on TV this becomes a story, but for us internally, this becomes part of the way we go racing. And that’s why we invest so much in culture, in values, and in the mindset because we want to be able to manage this situation if we want to be in the championship with Lando, with Oscar, and with McLaren.”
Stella also insists he was not angry at Norris for forcing the team to send multiple radio messages to convince him to return the place to Piastri, as he says it shows the right mentality but still ended with the outcome the team requested.
“Because he’s a race driver. Mention to me a race driver that would have not done it? Actually, I think you can mention to me many that would have not done it until lap 70. And I would be extremely concerned in the case of if Lando had not demonstrated ‘I’m a race driver here’ because that’s the ethos you need to fight hard. You need to fight when you are in contention with the likes of Max Verstappen, Lewis Hamilton, and more and more, I guess, Oscar himself.
“So he demonstrated the ethos, the spirit of the race driver, but, while it could be something that is entertaining to talk about the controversial aspect, it would be unfair not to talk about the resolution which happened according to our way of going racing.”