McLaren team principal Andrea Stella has no regrets on the decision to pit both Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri for fresh intermediate tyres under the virtual safety car in Brazil.
Piastri was running seventh when the VSC emerged, and his position on track meant that he was among the first drivers to be called into the pits.
Norris came in on the subsequent lap while running second, following race leader George Russell into the pitlane just as the VSC was ending.
Meanwhile Esteban Ocon, Max Verstappen and Pierre Gasly all stayed out and gained track position. When a subsequent safety car period was followed by a red flag, they were handed a free tyre change.
Norris eventually finished sixth, but Stella insists that coming in was the correct call to make at the time.
“I think Lando had already been saying that we needed a new set of tyres,” said Stella. “The rain was increasing, and there was a virtual safety car.
“So I think these were perfect conditions to actually pit, because you want to put your car in the best tyres for an extra stint with more rain, you want to finish the race, because you don’t want to have an aquaplaning on tyres that are getting relatively worn.
“And you have a virtual safety car, which means you are going to execute this pit stop in the minimum amount of time. So for us this was, to be honest, a very sensible call.
“When you are behind, then you see those ahead of you that pitted you can see an opportunity to take the lead staying out, but you do have to rely on a red flag, otherwise it will be difficult when we restart after the virtual safety car with those cars on old tyres and that amount of water.”
Stella said that going to new tyres was the safer decision in terms of not only keeping the drivers safe and avoiding accident damage but also logging priceless constructors’ points.
“The reason why this decision didn’t pay off is that actually the rain was became very intense, leading together with a crash, to a red flag,” he said.
“But we thought at the time that with the virtual safety car and with the increased amount of water on track, it was important to go on the new tyre, and I think without a red flag, and with a little less intensity, which is always difficult to predict, it would have been quite difficult for the people that had not changed the tyres.
“Sometimes you look brilliant because you commit to something, and it’s always easier to commit when you are behind, and you look like a hero.
“But at the same time, I back the decision that we made, because it came with full agreement of the drivers, the pit wall, and also a little bit of reason as to we need to make sure we stay on track, because we compete for points, we compete for both championships, and we need to finish races.
“And personally, I’m not very comfortable to leave a car out there with tyres that are pretty worn, with that amount of water. So without the red flag, we will be commenting another race here.”
Stella praised both drivers for making the chequered flag while acknowledging that the car didn’t make it easy for them, with both suffering with brake locking issues in the wet conditions.
“I judge it with the fact that the message to both drivers was let’s finish the race,” he said. “In races like this it’s easy to have a problem which actually takes you out of the race and is a DNF and is zero points.
“And considering what we are fighting for at the moment, this is what we wanted to avoid. And I want to praise the fact that both drivers achieved this kind of objective.
“I think if I look at Lando himself, the main things to review have to do with him going off track, which cost us positions.
“But we did struggle with both drivers, including qualifying. In Q3 Oscar didn’t score a very strong lap time because he locked in his last two attempts in corner one. We did struggle with his locking the tyres.
“So while we talk about drivers, I think we as a team have to acknowledge that we didn’t give the drivers easy material today to handle in these difficult conditions.
“I’m sure the drivers will say I could have done better here and there. But also we as a team, we have to acknowledge that our car in these conditions was difficult, tricky and sometimes just unpredictable.”
