DHL Fastest Pit Stop for McLaren fails to correct strategic error

The Formula 1 race in Qatar presented a particular challenge for the team strategy departments. Pirelli imposed a maximum running time of 25 laps per tire in the run-up to the Grand Prix. This limited the creativity of the F1 strategists. When the safety car was sent out on lap 7 of 57, it seemed like the obvious and easiest decision to make as almost the entire field came into the pits. Only McLaren bucked the trend and left both drivers out on track.

This quickly proved to be a mistake. Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri would have had to build up a lead of more than 25 seconds to stay in front after the first pit stop. But they failed to do so, allowing Max Verstappen to take the lead. Piastri made his second stop on lap 42.

While the McLaren pit crew left him standing for over three seconds during his first tire change, the team was all the faster on the second attempt. In a time of 2.08 seconds, they effected a lightning-speed switch from medium to hard tires. Although the official display board showed a standing time of 1.8 seconds, subsequent analysis of the vehicle data revealed the correct value to be 2.08 seconds.

The strong performance earned the McLaren crew the DHL Fastest Pit Stop, but not the race win in Qatar, with Piastri having to settle for P2 behind Verstappen’s Red Bull. After an otherwise perfect weekend, in which Piastri topped the timesheets in every session, the Grand Prix result came as a huge disappointment: “My frustration is pretty high. We didn’t get it right today, which is a shame. I drove well and we had a lot of pace. So it’s pretty painful.” The young Australian at least had the consolation of reducing his deficit to Lando Norris in the world championship standings to 16 points.