McLaren downplay Lando Norris’ strategy complaints: ‘Ferrari have a faster car’
McLaren believe they lost out to Charles Leclerc on pure pace – not strategy – in Australia.
McLaren F1 boss Andrea Stella feels that Lando Norris lost out to Charles Leclerc on pure performance rather than strategy.
Despite out-qualifying and leading Leclerc in the early phase of the race, Norris was ultimately beaten by the Ferrari driver to second-place.
After the race on Sunday, Norris thought that McLaren lost out to Ferrari on strategy at Albert Park.
He said: “I think when you take the Red Bull out of it, I would say [it was not a surprise]. I think our pace has been good all weekend.
“We put things together very nicely yesterday and showed a good long run pace on Friday. So I wouldn’t have said we had no chance. I didn’t expect for us to be competing against the Ferraris today and I think our pace was not as good as Carlos’s, but probably better than Charles’.
To be honest, we may have slightly missed a chance to be in second place today. Admitting this is a positive sign for our team and a morale boost for everyone.
Stella described McLaren as being “bold” in their strategy decisions on Sunday, specifically pointing out their choice to pit Oscar Piastri at the same time as Leclerc.
“It’s possible. It’s possible. That was very, very early in the race, a race with a high degree of uncertainty as to the behaviour of the hard tyres.
We observed that there were large cars that did not appear to be fast due to poor performance with the tires. One example is Sergio Perez’s Red Bull, which finished in fifth place.
I believe we chose to pursue an aggressive strategy in attempting to overtake Leclerc with Oscar.
However, Leclerc also thought it was a good move and they both made their move simultaneously, possibly due to hearing our radio communication.
“This also implied that Leclerc and Oscar would be caught up in a battle with two vehicles, which we deemed as an unnecessary gamble due to Lando’s advantageous position.”
Putting strategy aside, Stella believes that Ferrari had the faster car in Australia, but she is optimistic about being even more competitive at Suzuka in the next race.
Leclerc crossed the finish line before Lando because their current car is faster,” he explained.
The positive news is that this faster car is not faster by much at all. We were very close, which I think is encouraging for Japan in which some of the characteristics that make Australia good for us take another step further in having a higher ratio of medium-high-speed [corners] compared to low-speed.”
