McLaren suffered a strategic disaster at the Qatar Grand Prix, allowing Max Verstappen to claim victory.
Oscar Piastri looked set to dominate the race, having won the Sprint from pole position and claimed pole for Sunday’s race. He led the field in the opening laps from Lando Norris and Verstappen, before Nico Hulkenberg brought out the safety car on lap seven.
With the Qatar Grand Prix being a mandatory two-pit stop race, the field, except for the McLarens and Esteban Ocon, took the opportunity to pit under the safety car. This proved costly for the 2025 champions.
Verstappen found himself behind Piastri and Norris on fresh tyres as the safety car came in. When they eventually pitted, they were behind the Dutchman and could not find a way back past, with Piastri finishing second and Norris in fifth.
McLaren admitted that they got their strategy wrong in Qatar; pitting under the safety car would almost certainly have guaranteed the win. However, they later claimed after the race that they could not make up ground due to the Pirelli tyres.
‘Everyone’ disagreed with McLaren about tyre degradation at the Qatar Grand Prix
The Woking outfit said that ‘severe’ tyre degradation prevented Norris and Piastri from catching Verstappen. However, journalist Stuart Codling noted that every other team and driver did not have the same issue.
Asked why the soft tyre was not used by McLaren in Qatar, he said via the Autosport F1 Podcast: “Well, that is a very good question because Pirelli thought it would, and they thought a final stint on the soft was very doable.
“McLaren said that they weren’t able to catch up with Max in the end because of severe degradation of the tyres. If that’s true, they would be the only team on the grid to have experienced that level of degradation.
“Everyone else we spoke to in the pen, all the drivers, all the teams said there was zero degradation. They just couldn’t overtake. And the reason they couldn’t overtake was the degradation situation.
“Everyone was sort of in the same scenario with the tyres. Part of the reason this was such a processional race is that more or less everyone was locked into the same strategy and they had the same degradation patterns and weren’t able to do anything. So I just find McLaren’s rationale there quite peculiar.”
READ MORE: McLaren told their drivers don’t have what it takes to ‘fight their way forward’ like Max Verstappen
McLaren need to reset ahead of the season finale in Abu Dhabi
McLaren’s strategy blunder has set up an intense title fight in Abu Dhabi that could have been avoided. The championship could have been wrapped up in Qatar, but now, they are under pressure from Verstappen.
Norris leads the standings by 12 points over the Red Bull star, while Piastri is four points further back. McLaren cannot allow another mistake with strategy in Abu Dhabi, as it could hand the title to their rival.
A hard reset is needed before the season finale. Given they have scored 800 points this season, it would be a catastrophic failure for McLaren to lose the championship.
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