2025 McLaren F1 Team

[basti313]

in theory undercut with Lando sounds good

Yes. And just for the record: I do not think the undercut was the main issue. The main issue was not to split strategy and go long with one car.

BEA then had 3,3s free air ahead, but ending up behind him would ruin the undercut

Well, you need to risk it and as FittingMechanics said, I also see in the data that it would have worked. The only thread for P3 was Russel. They anyways pitted Pia into this position, so what are you debating?
Interesting fact is, that the front stops triggered the midfield, other way round than usual. They also do not want to lose time by getting overtaken. That is always a second to two loss, which makes you lose a position. So we saw all traffic vanish.

I hope they are not thinking along those lines. To me, the whole scenario does not make sense. Pitting Piastri first increases possibility of him overtaking Norris, not decreases it.

I think a point we should not miss is, that Pias tires were dead. The gap was increasing starting lap 17. Seeing especially this...may have not worked with going long for Pia. I think the sensitive way is still going opposite with Norris.

[BMMR61]

in theory undercut with Lando sounds good

Yes. And just for the record: I do not think the undercut was the main issue. The main issue was not to split strategy and go long with one car.

BEA then had 3,3s free air ahead, but ending up behind him would ruin the undercut

Well, you need to risk it and as FittingMechanics said, I also see in the data that it would have worked. The only thread for P3 was Russel. They anyways pitted Pia into this position, so what are you debating?
Interesting fact is, that the front stops triggered the midfield, other way round than usual. They also do not want to lose time by getting overtaken. That is always a second to two loss, which makes you lose a position. So we saw all traffic vanish.

I hope they are not thinking along those lines. To me, the whole scenario does not make sense. Pitting Piastri first increases possibility of him overtaking Norris, not decreases it.

I think a point we should not miss is, that Pias tires were dead. The gap was increasing starting lap 17. Seeing especially this...may have not worked with going long for Pia. I think the sensitive way is still going opposite with Norris.

Just checked the official lap times. Max, Lando and Oscar were all doing low to mid 33s between laps 10 and 20 when the pitstops kicked off. Piastri tyres were not dead, please don't repeat as facts opinions which are debatable at best. The gap opened by about a second over 4-5 laps which could have been mostly about a choice to get out of the dirty air. Anyway the decision to pit Piastri was made by decisions further down the field, in spite of people's denials here. Undercut, just to be definite here, was not going to work in these tyre and temperature conditions, end of story. I am usually on the offence for better strategic adventure but have to concede that at Suzuka 2025 this would have been just a shot in the dark.

[BMMR61]

I really don't understand the call to pit with the leader. You pit opposite the leader. Pitting with the leader in the vast majority of cases guarantees you maintain the track position status quo, and why would you do that on a track where overtaking is practically impossible?

Absolutely, it just concedes the lead. It's interesting to consider if they had run Lando a lap further that with the poor pitstop by Red Bull, McLaren would have had a target on Max's back, probably requiring a 2.0 pitstop and running a perfect in lap in fresh air. Never follow the leader into pitlane.

[Seerix]

The thing is that yes, maybe Lando would end up ahead of BEA if they managed same pit as they did live, it would still be close I think. What we don't know is, how long of a pit stop does the team consider in their simulation of race. Maybe the simulation counts with 3s pitstop and Lando would end up behind BEA in that case, so they did not think there is a gap?

my observation:
Osc pits while 2.6s behind Lando
Osc comes out 1.8s behind BEA on pit exit
Osc is 2.6s behind BEA after 2 turns

this does not show that NOR would definitely come out ahead if he pitted instead of Osc I think
and we don't know how long of a pitstop does the team race sim consider

[basti313]

Just checked the official lap times. Max, Lando and Oscar were all doing low to mid 33s between laps 10 and 20 when the pitstops kicked off. Piastri tyres were not dead, please don't repeat as facts opinions which are debatable at best. The gap opened by about a second over 4-5 laps which could have been mostly about a choice to get out of the dirty air.

Dropping into clean air for tire saving in the most and only crucial point of the race?
Do you just want to push the glory sentence "please don't repeat as facts opinions which are debatable at best" or are you in reality?
As you say, he dropped back, out of 2sec to Lando. Which is far too much for these cars just for tire saving by the way. With a rate slightly shy of 0.3sec per lap. This is the amount we discussed a page before on the delta to new hards for Lando. Double this delta would have killed any overcut.
His tires were not good anymore, he had to pit. That is not debatable, that is a fact according to losing nearly 0.3 sec in such a tight race.

[trinidefender]

They should have pitted Norris on Oscar’s lap and let Oscar go long. Any more of an undercut probably would have put the driver into traffic.

Allowing Oscar to go long wouldn’t have risked a position. Just a 2/3 swap at worst between Piastri and Norris. And at best would have allowed Piastri to take the win and end the day 1/3 or a 2/3 in the same order.

That strategy would have created a situation with 2 out of 3 strategies being null and 1 paying off even even reducing the amount max would close the constructors gap to Norris by 3 points instead of 7

[Macklaren]

All this chatter assumes McLaren was willing to risk a P2/3 points finish in WCC for one win that helps with WDC. there is no reason to think that way in race 3 of a 24 race season.

Read this https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/f1-p ... /10710954/

Spoiler alert: none of the experts say that McLaren was clearly wrong with their strategy

[basti313]

All this chatter assumes McLaren was willing to risk a P2/3 points finish in WCC for one win that helps with WDC. there is no reason to think that way in race 3 of a 24 race season.

Read this https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/f1-p ... /10710954/

Spoiler alert: none of the experts say that McLaren was clearly wrong with their strategy

Not? The first two say what I say: The issue is that they did not go for the winning strategy because of intra team sanity/problems. That is not a nice problem to have. They gave up these points for keeping the situation calm.

The last one interestingly said the opposite of what he posted on his own homepage. On his own site he wrote the same as the third one, that the PACETEQ data showed the overcut would have worked.

[Macklaren]

All this chatter assumes McLaren was willing to risk a P2/3 points finish in WCC for one win that helps with WDC. there is no reason to think that way in race 3 of a 24 race season.

Read this https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/f1-p ... /10710954/

Spoiler alert: none of the experts say that McLaren was clearly wrong with their strategy

Not? The first two say what I say: The issue is that they did not go for the winning strategy because of intra team sanity/problems. That is not a nice problem to have. They gave up these points for keeping the situation calm.

The last one interestingly said the opposite of what he posted on his own homepage. On his own site he wrote the same as the third one, that the PACETEQ data showed the overcut would have worked.

Yeah, but they all concluded that the opportunity/risk was probably not enough to be worth it. Unlike last year, when these articles trashed their strategy team

[deadhead]

The WCC is pretty much decided since Red Bull have slower car with only one driver, Ferrari have two good drivers but a much slower car, and Mercedes are more or less in the same boat.

McLaren have a very fast car with two good drivers.

[Macklaren]

The WCC is pretty much decided since Red Bull have slower car with only one driver, Ferrari have two good drivers but a much slower car, and Mercedes are more or less in the same boat.

McLaren have a very fast car with two good drivers.

True but the goal is to effectively put away the WCC as early as possible (maybe by R6 even) so that we can turn to the 2026 car earlier than others

[Seanspeed]

in theory undercut with Lando sounds good, did you guys check the traffic and where he would have rejoined? field spread was really bad on Sunday

Right. Everybody paying attention could see the obvious - there were no safe gaps after a pitstop for the top guys. Any of them pitting would have resulted in coming out in traffic. I think Russell was the first to try, in order to try and get ahead of Leclerc but Russell immediately came out in traffic and it blew his chance. It would have been the same for any of them.

Drivers would need the kind of pace advantage to pass basically anywhere on track in order to make the undercut work and not get stalled by traffic. And that wasn't happening.

It was just a bad position to be in, and letting Max get pole in a slower car is where they really failed.

And going longer?

Well the guys behind would eventually pit and create the gaps to run in free air, at which point any of the top guys who extended their stint even longer would be losing track position.

They all pitted basically in the sweetspot.

[basti313]

Yeah, but they all concluded that the opportunity/risk was probably not enough to be worth it.

Ehhmmmm....no?
Did you read the article?

Checking all sentences containing risk:
- Vording disagrees with Stellas bullshit bingo on safety car risk...come on...and names Antoinelli as example, that it would have worked.
- d'Alessandro: "But was it worth the risk? Yes..."
- Codling: "Norris could have run another 12laps ...without the risk...".

Of course they are all criticizing the strategy and claim there was no risk other than making one driver angry...

Unlike last year, when these articles trashed their strategy team

I think it was just because of the lawnmower action. The only highlight in the race...cudos for McLaren for making this possible
In a normal stop where Norris just moves out of the pits behind Verstappen, the critizism would be there.

[mwillems]

Right. Everybody paying attention could see the obvious - there were no safe gaps after a pitstop for the top guys. Any of them pitting would have resulted in coming out in traffic. I think Russell was the first to try, in order to try and get ahead of Leclerc but Russell immediately came out in traffic and it blew his chance. It would have been the same for any of them.

Drivers would need the kind of pace advantage to pass basically anywhere on track in order to make the undercut work and not get stalled by traffic. And that wasn't happening.

It was just a bad position to be in, and letting Max get pole in a slower car is where they really failed.

And going longer?

Well the guys behind would eventually pit and create the gaps to run in free air, at which point any of the top guys who extended their stint even longer would be losing track position.

They all pitted basically in the sweetspot.

Landos laps in dirty air were only .2s behind his opening laps on hard. How are you sure he wouldn't find the 2 tenths extra he needed to come out in front of Max after his poor stop?

Lando himself said he could have gone longer and thinks the team might have made a mistake.

[venkyhere]

Just checked the official lap times. Max, Lando and Oscar were all doing low to mid 33s between laps 10 and 20 when the pitstops kicked off. Piastri tyres were not dead, please don't repeat as facts opinions which are debatable at best. The gap opened by about a second over 4-5 laps which could have been mostly about a choice to get out of the dirty air. Anyway the decision to pit Piastri was made by decisions further down the field, in spite of people's denials here. Undercut, just to be definite here, was not going to work in these tyre and temperature conditions, end of story. I am usually on the offence for better strategic adventure but have to concede that at Suzuka 2025 this would have been just a shot in the dark.

Didn't Piastri himself say in post race media interaction (dont remember to which broadcast) that his tyres had 'deg'-ed' anyway, and that he had to pit because he had pushed too much in the dirty air behind Lando ? Or was that a PR-team fed soundbyte that Piastri was parroting ?