Since Lando Norris scored his breakthrough victory in Miami two months ago, McLaren can believe with some justification that he could have had another five more wins.
During that time Norris has emerged as Max Verstappen’s closest championship rival, and the mistakes on his side of the garage have understandably received more scrutiny as a result.But Norris isn’t the only McLaren driver who is counting the missed opportunities to win races. His far less experienced team mate Oscar Piastri, still only in his second full season of Formula 1, has arguably seen three chances slip through his grasp.
Norris was Verstappen’s greatest threat at Imola where he joined the Red Bull driver on the front row. But Piastri could have started second ahead of him: He qualified there but incurred a three-place grid penalty for impeding Kevin Magnussen, an error McLaren could have easily avoided.
Piastri got his second place start in Monaco, alongside Charles Leclerc, but a first-lap red flag removed his only opportunity to attack the Ferrari driver through strategy.
In Austria, Piastri should have been there to pick up the pieces when Norris and Verstappen collided. George Russell, who started third, was, and again this was where Piastri should have lined up. A borderline track limits call, which still rankled deeply with McLaren days afterwards, meant he started sixth instead. Another second place, just 1.9 seconds off Russell, shows this was a win-able race for Piastri.
Both McLarens lost out due to poor strategic calls by McLaren a week later. In Piastri’s case the team’s decision not to pit both drivers together during the early rain spoiled his day. He was forced to crawl around for one more lap with slick tyres on a wet track, losing a huge amount of time.
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In the final stint Piastri avoided his team mate’s mistake of taking the soft tyres. His pace on the mediums was superb, and had he gone into the closing laps without the deficit he incurred prior to his first stop, he would have been a contender.
Piastri is taking heart from the fact he isn’t repeating the same errors. “I think the kind of good thing, but kind of bad thing as well, is it’s never been the same thing that’s prevented us from winning,” he said in response to a question from RaceFans.
“Obviously today we made a wrong call. In Imola we had an issue in qualifying with traffic. In Austria – the less said about qualifying in Austria the better. So I guess it’s a good thing that it’s not been repeated error or mistake.
“But we have good handle now, I think, on both sides of the garage where we felt like we could have won the race. I think we’ve got the hardest part done, we’ve got an incredibly quick car, we just need to capitalise on using it.”
He believes McLaren made correct calls the vast majority of the time last weekend, especially the decision to run more downforce in qualifying anticipating a wet race.
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“I honestly think we made a really good choice. We added downforce into qualifying. We were struggling a little bit in the high speed in the dry anyway. The way the chances were I think we made a really good call on that.
“So I think we made 99% of the decisions correct this weekend, just I think probably one on my side with the pit stop and one on Lando’s with the tyre choice.”
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2024 British Grand Prix
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bernasaurus (@bernasaurus)
13th July 2024, 9:50
If F1 ever seemed like a fickle game, Oscar’s career could very easily have been entangled in the ‘sacking everyone / slower car than last year / hiring Briatore’ saga that is Alpine. Somebody in his counsel made a very good decision, and ultimately his career (thus far) is way better for it. Watching him struggle against a highly rated (but tough to benchmark) Norris initially and then slowly slowly inch towards him as the car got better and better has been good to watch.
There is every reason to suggest that McLaren have the best partnership on the grid. Oscar might only have a third of Lando’s starts but together they have 150, a decent enough amount of experience. They seem to complement each other well and prioritise the team. Obviously if they’re fighting for a WC the gloves might come off and things might change, but right now I think there is plenty to be positive about when McLaren look at their drivers.
SteveP
13th July 2024, 11:25
He’s managed by Mark Webber. Need I say more?
Nick T.
13th July 2024, 20:32
And fickle is an example of why he wasn’t battling Lewis week at the end for the win. Had they stopped him on the same lap as Max, it’s likely he’s easily in the lead. If they even stopped him on the same lap as Sainz, he’s still likely in the lead, had they doubled stacked him with Norris, he would have passed Norris due to being on mediums and at least gotten second and a good chance to win. These are the sort of vagaries that end up reflecting on the driver when their driving really had nothing to do with it.
anon
14th July 2024, 0:09
Nick T., that does rely on several other suppositions that could also have gone in a different direction as well.
For example, because Norris lost a few seconds during his final pit stop when he skidded under braking and overshot his pit box slightly, he pushed harder on his outlap than either Piastri, Hamilton or Verstappen did on their outlaps to try and partially make up for that lost time.
If Norris had not ended up pushing quite so hard on his outlap, would his tyres have dropped off quite as quickly as they did during that final stint? It’s possible that, if he could have taken it slightly easier on his outlap, the soft tyres might not have dropped off quite as quickly and thus he could have maintained a more competitive pace, which is what Hamilton was able to do.
Equally, how might other drivers and teams reacted to Piastri in those circumstances? Would they necessarily have driven in the same way and would they have adopted the same strategies as they did if Piastri was in a different position?
José Lopes da Silva
13th July 2024, 22:41
I think it’s quite important to underlign this in these comments, time after time, given that a huge number of people started bashing Piastri for whatever reasons when he took the decision. That his career was over, that no one was ever going to hiring again, etc., a load of pointless predictions caused by the fact that they didn’t felt he was entitled to move. Entitled or not – it’s a matter for lawyers and I’m pretty sure he was – his career future had nothing to do with it.
And yes, in fact, it’s likely more secure and stable after moving to McLaren than by staying.
Fer no.65 (@fer-no65)
13th July 2024, 12:43
Piastri probably feels the golden ticket he got when he and Webber made the decision to go to Mclaren instead of Alpine much more important than a GP win, tbh.
Nick T.
13th July 2024, 20:39
Indeed. Simply not having to deal with trying to stand out in a car that is in the midfield is massive. Drivers though are luckier today. Once upon a time the midfield let alone backmarkers used to get zero coverage and they didn’t even show intervals. So, you’d have zero idea how they were doing. It made it really difficult for drivers to prove themselves.
Jere (@jerejj)
13th July 2024, 12:59
I’m sure he’ll achieve his maiden Grand Prix victory someday, sooner than later.
Simon
13th July 2024, 17:22
You meant to say: someday, sooner, later, earlier, probably, probably not, could be, might not be, as expected
and so on…
Jere (@jerejj)
13th July 2024, 20:48
No, simply that, in all likelihood, he’ll win eventually.
Patrick (@paeschli)
18th July 2024, 11:18
Just as Ricciardo was a future world champion et some point
EffWunFan (@cairnsfella)
14th July 2024, 2:12
Did he?
David (@nvherman)
15th July 2024, 9:46
Sooner than later means “sooner rather than later” , a common phrase in English to mean that something will happen imminently. I happen to agree
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
14th July 2024, 0:58
He should be able to if mclaren keeps being this competitive, he got very close in austria after verstappen and norris crashed, and this season we had 6 different winners in 4 different cars, which hasn’t happened in a while, the only ones missing who actually had the car to win are piastri and perez, and given perez’s form, piastri is most likely the only other driver that could win this year.
Edvaldo
13th July 2024, 16:35
He’s versatile, has good race craft and doesn’t seem to get as frantic as Norris to make big decisions from the car.
If he solves his race pace, then it’s going to happen soon.
Rhys Lloyd (@justrhysism)
18th July 2024, 7:19
Race pace I think will come as he figures out the tyres. I think the McLaren is still a bit of a fickle car, and has a very narrow window for the tyres.
Leo B
13th July 2024, 17:00
So far McLaren have been doing a Ferrari: giving one of their drivers priority. Let’s not forget Stella is ex Ferrari. Piastri will win and when he does Norris will do his sad puppy act all day, just like when Oscar won that sprint.
MichaelN
13th July 2024, 17:31
This is a bit of a dated view; Ferrari has had solid line-ups in Leclerc/Sainz, Leclerc/Vettel, Vettel/Räikkönen, Alonso/Räikkönen and Räikkonen/Massa. Even in 2022 and 2018, years when Ferrari (briefly) looked like mounting a title challenge the (slightly) slower of the two was freely racing – one or two disadvantageous pit stop calls for Räikkönen excepted. Indeed, in 2022 arguably went out of its way to mess up Leclerc’s race to Sainz’ benefit multiple times. For whatever reason. It probably made sense to Binotto, which is just one more reason why it’s great he’s no longer at the team.
Frank
13th July 2024, 19:19
One of the chracteristics of a conspiracy theory is the inability to explain even a shred of the motivation of the main actors.
Very few people try to shoot themselves into the foot. Most of the time, they were aiming at another target but missed spectacularly.
The same happened to the Leclerc pit calls.
David (@nvherman)
15th July 2024, 10:02
I hate to break this to you, but the reason McLaren usually prioritise Norris, is that he is usually in front of Piastri.
There have also been times when Piastri has been given the better strategy, even though Norris was in front of him (see Australia this season for an example).
So far, out of 12 rounds, Norris has outqualified Piastri 9 times, and Piastri has only finished ahead of Norris in a Grand Prix 3 times (counting Austria, where Norris retired following the collision with Verstappen).
Derek
16th July 2024, 12:49
Did anyone notice that he was within DRS nearly every lap until Norris pitted? Probably faster but Norris is currently “Golden Child”. Let him past, get a few seconds advantage, pit first…..top of the podium!