Martin Brundle pinpoints McLaren’s ‘grave error’ in strategy gamble

Martin Brundle says McLaren “paid a heavy price” with their strategy gamble at the Qatar Grand Prix.

McLaren threw away what appeared to be a certain victory for Oscar Piastri by choosing not to pit either driver under an early Safety Car in Sunday’s race in Qatar.

The decision meant Piastri was left having to overtake Red Bull’s Max Verstappen, but track position proved more important than strategic flexibility as the Australian missed out on the win by almost eight seconds.

Verstappen’s seventh win of the season cut his deficit to championship leader Lando Norris, who finished fourth, down to 12 points heading into a three-way title showdown in Abu Dhabi next weekend.

“The McLaren strategists elected not to pit Oscar Piastri from the lead and Lando Norris from third place and to keep flexibility on tyre decision rather than being locked into two 25-lap stints,” Brundle wrote in his column for Sky.

“This was a grave error because hardly anyone else did that, and Piastri had such a lead already that he would have comfortably pitted and exited in the lead without holding Norris up too much while he waited for service.

“McLaren had gambled on three things out of their control, and they paid a heavy price. Firstly, that others would do the same thing in staying out and Verstappen would have to negotiate traffic for a while on the restart, secondly that flexibility on their tyres would pay dividends later in the race not least if there was another Safety Car, and in any event pitting with a much less congested pit lane.

“Thirdly, that they would have much fresher and faster tyres in the closing stages to usurp a struggling Verstappen on his long-stinted tyres. None of them played out.

“Andrea Stella confirmed it was a conscious decision and not a fumble or indecision, and it doesn't appear to have been about simply being fair to both drivers in their championship chances.

“Pitting both would have fixed that anyway even if Norris lost a bit of time and a couple of places at that point, but that's the cost of not being faster than Piastri on the night.”

Brundle added: “I feel most for Piastri, he was sublime all weekend and clearly the fastest combination on track with two pole positions, an easy Sprint victory, and comfortably the fastest in the main race.

“He managed to close 18 seconds on Verstappen of the 26 initially given away, but he was therefore still eight seconds shy at the flag.”

McLaren to conduct internal review

McLaren admitted to misjudging the strategy call and have confirmed they will hold an internal review.

“I think in terms of the misjudgement, [it] is something that we will have to review, discussing internally,” McLaren team principal Andrea Stella said.

“We'll have to assess some factors, like for instance whether there was a certain bias in the way we were thinking that led us as a group to think that not all cars necessarily would have pitted.

“We will have to go through the review in a very thorough way, but what's important is that we do it as usual in a way that is constructive, is analytical.

“We are disappointed. But, if anything, as soon as we start the review, we will get even more determined to learn our lessons, adapt and be stronger as a team and make sure that this phenomenal, beautiful opportunity that we have to compete for the drivers' championship and be the ones that actually stop Verstappen's dominance in this period of Formula 1.

“We want to face it at the best of ourselves. I'm looking forward to the next race and I'm looking forward to seeing a strong reaction from our team.”