At first glance, Sunday’s British Grand Prix looked like a big win for McLaren. Lando Norris finished third to claim his seventh Grand Prix podium of the season. Oscar Piastri finished behind Norris in fourth place, giving the team the most points of any team at Silverstone with 27. These points not only move McLaren within striking distance of Red Bull in the constructors’ championship, but also move them to just seven points behind second-placed Ferrari.
Still, Sunday was meant to be much better for McLaren.
A series of strategic decisions in changing conditions saw McLaren go from a potential one-two finish to Norris and Piastri ultimately finishing third and fourth, leaving the team with questions about what could have happened on Sunday at Silverstone.
Early on, McLaren seemed to be heading in the right direction, with Max Verstappen cruising into third place behind the Mercedes of George Russell and Lewis Hamilton, while Norris and Piastri were waiting to attack in fourth and fifth respectively. When the first rain started to fall, the Papaya Boys pounced, and within a few laps they were first and second, with Norris taking the lead over his teammate.
Eventually, as track conditions began to deteriorate, the teams were faced with a crucial decision on when to switch from slicks to intermediates. McLaren ultimately brought on Norris, but given Silverstone’s pit lane layout (with only one pit stall for each team), the teams were faced with a crucial decision: bring on both drivers and run two cars side-by-side, or allow one of them to do a lap on slicks in the deteriorating conditions?
They brought on Norris and took Piastri off.
It worked out well for Norris, returning as race leader by three seconds over Hamilton, but it came at a heavy cost to Piastri, who struggled around Silverstone trying to find enough grip and then, after finally completing his pit stop, ran out of intermediate tyres on his MCL38, dropping him back to sixth place behind Carlos Sainz Jr.
upper F1TV Commentator Jolyon Palmer was rather disappointed with the decision to keep Piastri on for an extra lap: “It ruined his race by leaving him on for another lap,” the former F1 driver said, with evidence to back up his position. Mercedes faced the same decision as Hamilton and Russell, but executed a solid double-stack stop, with both drivers coming out ahead of Piastri.
However, McLaren later got a bit lucky when Russell’s W15 suffered what appeared to be a water failure, forcing him to retire and allowing Piastri to move up to fifth place, before overtaking Sainz for fourth place.
Then came the next big decision. As the laps tapered off and the track began to dry, the teams were faced with the question of when to switch from the greenwall intermediates, which were beginning to show noticeable signs of wear, to slicks. With 15 laps to go, Hamilton and Verstappen both switched to fresh tyres, while McLaren kept Norris on for another lap.
As with Piastri’s decision, Norris lost significant time on his worn intermediate tyres the following lap, a situation made worse by a later-than-normal pit stop triggered by Norris being a little too far forward in his pit box. As Norris slowly came out of stall on the soft tyres and desperately tried to get them going, all he could do was watch as Hamilton passed him to take the race lead.
Soon after, Norris’ hopes of victory turned into a fight to hold on to second place. Red Bull decided to put hard tyres on Verstappen’s RB20, and this looked to be the right decision as Verstappen slowly caught up with Hamilton and Norris while both British drivers were running on soft tyres at Silverstone. Verstappen eventually caught up with Norris and took second place, pushing Norris down to third place for his eventual third place finish.
McLaren’s dreams of a one-two finish were gone, with the Woking-based team having to settle for third or fourth place in the afternoon.
“As a team I don’t think we did the job we should have and we didn’t achieve enough, but it’s still nice to be on the podium at Silverstone,” Norris admitted to Jenson Button trackside after the race.
The McLaren driver then shouldered the majority of the blame.
“I’m blaming myself for not making the right decisions today, but I hate it. I hate it to end like this and I hate making excuses for not doing a good enough job,” Norris said, before turning a bit more optimistic. “But I’m very happy and I’m going to continue to enjoy it. I think I still did a lot of things right. There were a lot of positives.”
talk Sky Sports ItalyMcLaren team boss Andrea Stella acknowledged there were things that could have been done differently, pointing to the decision not to double-stack with Piastri early in the race and not putting medium tyres on Norris’ MCL38 during his final pit stop.
Norris ended his trackside interview with Button on a more positive note: “I’ll come back stronger next year and try again,” he said.
Again, in terms of points, it’s still a strong result for McLaren, reducing Red Bull’s lead at the top of the constructors’ championship standings and moving them to within single digits of second-placed Ferrari.
But they may have achieved much more than that.
A lot more.
There may be a few sleepless nights in Woking until the Hungarian grid comes roaring back to life.
