Andrea Stella says that McLaren was chasing the best chance of stealing a victory from Max Verstappen, and it was safer to remove the two cars from the order.
The Red Bull drivers dominated in Monza, but McLaren was not under serious threat from behind, so they ran before pitting soft tires in the closure stage. Such a slow stop allowed Charles Leclerc to have stopped earlier – allowing him to begin a little closure, and Stella explained why the scenario was developed before drilling a hole in the second car of Oscar Piastri before the Rand Norris lead.
“Obviously, stopping to cover Leclerc would have been a simple solution to how the race was rolled out, but the outcome would have been limited,” Stella said. “So I wanted to find a way to pursue greater results.
“In the case of the red flag, it would have been very strong, either because the two McLarens were leading or even in the safety car to a certain point. And it would have been strong. And I wanted to stop the delay enough to go soft.
“So, from a race perspective and from an overall perspective, there was an incentive to be outside.”
With Piastri, who came in third behind Norris, first brought in, it was the opposite order compared to how the team normally stops the driver. Norris’ slow pit stop allowed the team to trade positions. Stella says the situation will be investigated, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that McLaren will do something different in the future.
“If we went with Rand first, despite the (slow) pit stop, I think he could have recovered quite a bit of the time we lost, with the undercuts that are strong enough to have with the new software.
“So for us, it was relatively easy to say that we would not exchange positions by stopping the piercing first. As for the pit stop itself, we will look at all available data and understand future learning.
“First, I think you need to agree to what the word “review” means. Reviews are the foundation of pursuing excellence. For me, reviews don’t mean we need to change. We may potentially review it and further tweak it and confirm it. ”