McLaren team principal Andrea Stella has explained why the team chose not to pit their drivers under the Safety Car at the Qatar Grand Prix — a decision that cost them a likely victory and let Max Verstappen take the win.
The Safety Car was deployed on lap seven after Pierre Gasly and Nico Hülkenberg collided at turn one, and Hülkenberg spun into the gravel. With a 25-lap limit on tyre stints at the high-speed Lusail circuit, lap seven was the earliest point where drivers could pit and still complete equal stints to the finish, making it an appealing Safety Car stop. Most teams pitted; McLaren left race leader Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris out, while Verstappen and 16 others came in.
When the race resumed on lap 11, Verstappen — who had pitted under the Safety Car — only needed one more stop, whereas the McLarens still required two. Verstappen used that advantage, combined with strong pace and low tyre degradation, to overtake Piastri and win by eight seconds. Piastri finished second and Norris fourth behind Carlos Sainz.
Drivers’ top three after Qatar:
1) Lando Norris (McLaren) — 408
2) Max Verstappen (Red Bull) — 396
3) Oscar Piastri (McLaren) — 392
Piastri was left “speechless” over how the race unfolded from the lead, and Norris called it “not our finest day”. Stella said avoiding a double-stack pit stop for Norris was a consideration but “wasn’t the main reason.” He explained the team’s thinking: they wanted to avoid pitting into traffic after the stop and retain flexibility in case of a later Safety Car, effectively conceding one pit stop to a rival they knew to be fast that day.
“We didn’t want to end up in traffic after the pit stop but obviously all the other cars and teams had a different opinion,” Stella said. “Everyone pitted and this made our staying out ultimately being incorrect from a race outcome point of view, and because Verstappen was fast and also because the tyre degradation was low ultimately this decision was significantly penalising because clearly Oscar was in control of the race and deserved to win it. It was a decision. As a matter of fact it wasn’t the correct decision.”
On lap seven, Piastri led Verstappen by 2.6 seconds and Norris by 4.4 seconds; Norris was 1.7 seconds ahead of fourth-placed Kimi Antonelli and two seconds clear of Sainz. McLaren believed traffic would be a problem after pitting, but that interpretation proved wrong as most teams chose to pit immediately.
Piastri described the moment on team radio: “I asked, what are we doing? Because we were getting pretty close to the pit entry and I hadn’t had a call yet. When you don’t get a call instantly when the Safety Car comes out, clearly there’s probably some discussions going on about what to do. In that situation, you have to trust the team because they have a lot more information than the driver in the car on where gaps are and stuff like that.”
Asked if McLaren’s “papaya rules” — the team’s framework to operate fairly between its two title-chasing drivers — influenced the call, analysts were divided. Sky Sports pundit Bernie Collins questioned why Piastri, leading by three seconds, would not pit if he were a standalone car, and suggested hesitating to stack Norris behind his team-mate might have hurt. Martin Brundle disagreed that the papaya rules were the issue, saying McLaren simply misread the situation: “They thought they would get a Safety Car opportunity later on, they wanted that flexibility. They misunderstood it all and got it wrong.”
Norris dismissed the papaya rules theory: “It’s nothing to do with that. Everyone keeps thinking that, but it’s got nothing to do with that. We’re free to race. Red Bull were just as quick today as they were yesterday. They did a better job as a team and made the right call. That’s it.”
Piastri, visibly upset after the race, said: “I haven’t spoken to anyone but I feel pretty c**p as you can imagine. I don’t know what to say. We didn’t get it right with the strategy. The pace was very strong. I didn’t put a foot wrong. Just a shame. I left it [whether to pit] in the team’s hands to decide what the best strategy was. They had more information than I do.” In the press conference he added, “On a personal level, I feel like I’ve lost a win today.”
Verstappen’s victory — his fifth in the last eight races — sets up a three-way title showdown at the season finale in Abu Dhabi. Norris leads the championship by 12 points over Verstappen, with Piastri a further four points behind Verstappen, meaning all three remain in contention heading to the final weekend.
Stella conceded McLaren must review the call and learn from the mistake as the title fight moves to Abu Dhabi. The season concludes with the title-deciding Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.