McLaren trio Oscar Piastri, Lando Norris and Andrea Stella agree the tyre strategy was eventually a wrong call in F1 Canadian GP, but at that moment, it felt right.
The gamble from McLaren to start the 2026 F1 Canadian GP on the intermediate tyre fell flat, the moment they went around the formation lap. When they took the decision to start the grand prix on the intermediate tyre, it was drizzling in Montreal and the track was greasy.
But by the time they went around for the formation lap, it was dry enough to start on slicks, which is what the majority of the grid did. Apart from McLaren, the likes of Audi and Cadillac also took the intermediate gamble, while Williams split the strategy with Carlos Sainz on wet-weather tyre.
Piastri radioed of wrong tyre call to McLaren in F1 Canadian GP
Already on the formation lap, Piastri radioed about the wrong call. Despite the multiple formation laps, they opted not to pit, considering a chance of safety car. While Norris managed to take the lead at F1 Canadian GP start, teammate dropped to fourth and pitted at the end of the lap.
Norris eventually pitted few laps later to drop outside the Top 10. The Brit says they could have pitted under the formation lap, but a potential of a safety car prompted them to continue to start the race from the grid and take their chances. That gamble didn’t work either.
Collective call of McLaren team on intermediate tyre
“Yeah, I mean it was a group call,” said Piastri in the print media pen post F1 Canadian GP. “I was one of the people that said yes to the inters. Between the anthem and getting in the car, it had gotten significantly wetter on the ground. And given how difficult getting to the grid was, I thought that the inters, if you could get temperature into them, would be faster.
“That was our whole thinking. And then the rain stopped. So yeah, it was a bit of a shame. I think once we had the inters on the car, I don’t think pitting in the formation laps would have made that much of a difference, clearly. But yeah, we thought we were doing the safer thing and the right thing,” summed up Piastri.
Norris didn’t see call as bad decision-making by McLaren
Teammate Norris admitted the wrong call, but didn’t term it as bad decision-making by McLaren. “Probably just on the warm-up lap, I’d already stopped a little bit by then,” he said in the print media . “Yeah, it was the wrong decision in hindsight. Obviously it was good for a lap.
“It kept me out of trouble. So easily, things could have happened behind and I would have looked much better. But it was the wrong decision in the end. I don’t think through any bad decision-making. I think it was all there were valid reasons for doing what we did.
“I’m happy we kind of went for something and stuck to it. It doesn’t work out sometimes just the way it is, so we take it on the chin and we learn from it,” summed up Norris, who explained that a safety car at start would have helped their cause, but it didn’t happen.
Safety car on Lap 1 would have helped Norris
“Just the slicks would be terrible,” Norris started. “Yeah, already on the warm-up lap we thought there’d still be a very high chance of a safety car and things like that, so even with staying out on track, our safety car lost us 10 seconds.
“I was leading by two and if a safety car came out, not everyone would be on their delta. You know, I still could have come out on a new slick probably inside the top ten, even better. I probably would have been better than that even.
“There were a lot of positive things that could have come from it, just none of those things came our way. So, it was a shame, apart from the very first lap and a good start and a good lap one, then we were just unlucky today,” summed up Norris, while adding that the decision they took for both to start on the wet-weather tyre was the best they thought in the bid to win F1 Canadian GP.
Best idea in the bid to win F1 Canadian GP – at that moment
Eventually, it didn’t matter because he suffered a gearbox issue to retire. “I have no idea [about split strategy], we made the decision that [we thought] would be best to try and win a race,” said Norris. “Yeah, I mean, I just had a lot more grip and it shows how slippery it was for them in the beginning and I had a two-second gap after one lap, so it wasn’t like it was stupid to be on that tyre [as I said].
“It was just drying out and of course when you’ve got a bit of temperature into the tyres it worked out for them, so… Yeah, like 1% more rain or a few little bits of drizzle here or there and it really would have suited us a lot more, so that happens sometimes. Yeah, nothing really went our way today.
“I don’t think our pace was going to be exceptional either way with the temperatures we had and we ended with a DNF, so just a bit unlucky,” summed up Norris, as teammate Piastri returned empty handed in 11th in F1 Canadian GP, after crashing into Williams’ Alexander Albon at the hairpin.
Piastri apologised to Albon for run-in
With a third car in the mix, Piastri arrived at the corner with high-speed when Albon turned around to take the corner. The Australian misjudged and hit the side of the Thai racer, which earned him a time penalty. It further derailed his chances to score points.
“I thought it was going to be a bit tricky, but possible,” said Piastri. “The level of grip out there was like nothing I’ve driven before, really. I just caught myself out and obviously very sorry for Williams and Alex because I wasn’t trying to overtake him. I just locked up and that was it. One of those days.”
Explaining further, McLaren team boss Stella highlighted how they came to the conclusion to use the intermediate compound. He noted the timeframe when they took the decision and the weather condition then. He feels the extra formation lap also hurt their chances further.
Extra formation hurt McLaren as per Stella
“Well, you have to consider that the tyres are fit 5 minutes before the start and at the kind of 7 minutes when we needed to operationally make a decision,” explained Stella. “In our view the track was greasy, already there were trouble to keep temperature in the tyres in a dry track but at the time it was greasy and it was raining.
“So we thought that at the time you have to make a decision as to what tyres that was the right tyre for the moment. After that the rain very rapidly stopped and also there was a double formation lap which I think that took the best out of this decision. Because I would have been pretty interested in seeing the cars with the dry tyres had the race started at the time it should have started.
“So I think a bit unlucky with the fact that the rain just stopped and the fact that there was a double extra formation lap which I’m not sure exactly what is the last time that we saw it. So in hindsight we were penalised by the decision but at the time that the decision needed to be made I think the conditions existed to fit an intermediate tyre.
“It just changed very rapidly. In terms of making the decision actually it was relatively shared by the people and the drivers. I even gave my input myself because like I said before a call needed to be made. I just wanted to be sure that we were on a tyre that we could withstand the first lap,” summed up Stella.
Judge decision, but not by outcome
The Italian insists that people should judge a decision on how it is taken, rather than the outcome. The fact that it went from dark grey overhead to light and eventually dry, it didn’t do justice to McLaren’s decision in the end. If the rain had stayed for few more laps, others would have struggled.
“At the time that you have to make a decision as to what tyres to fit and with not necessarily a clear idea as to when the rain would stop the track was greasy and the right tyre at the time was the intermediate tyre,” continued Stella. “So I was really interested in seeing a race start at the time when the race should have started.
“Because I’m not sure how long it took for a double extra formation lap but definitely if you look at the pit lane, it went from being dark grey to grey like dry. So I think we always have to be a bit careful in judging decisions simply from the outcome. I think you have to judge the good decisions at the time they need to be made.
“Like I said, just the rain stopping pretty much after the five minutes signal and then the double extra formation lap added a clear penalty to starting on inters. But with the rain lasting for a few more minutes and the race start happening at the right time we could have seen, I think, cars struggling on right tyres,” summed up Stella.
Piastri deserved penalty for Albon clash
Looking at the performance of McLaren team as a whole in F1 Canadian GP, Stella acknowledged the mistake by Piastri in his incident with Albon. The Italian thought the pressure of recovery and less grippy conditions caught the Australian out, which hampered his race and result.
“Well, in terms of the incident, I think the stewards penalised the incident and this is deserved,” said Stella. “I don’t think there’s much more to add. It was a misjudgement. Obviously there must have been some pressure as well to try and recover.
“But ultimately this was penalised by the stewards and was also penalised by the fact that the car was damaged. So, like I said, in hindsight, definitely the points would have been possible. But today we didn’t have pace that could have allowed us to recover. I’m not sure.
“I need to check exactly who was in the positions behind the Ferraris and the Red Bull. I’m not sure that was possible in terms of catching up after the issues we had at the start. The car was damaged, so Oscar lost some performance because of aerodynamic things,” summed up Stella.
Norris had two issues to retire eventually
On Norris’ side, Stella highlighted two problems independent of each other, where the second one forced the McLaren driver to retire from F1 Canadian GP. At one point, he was asked to pit at with a reliability problem. The Italian revealed the issue to be overheating, where they had to clean the radiators in the pits.
The second one was a gearbox issue, which was unrelated to heating. “On Lando we had two issues,” said Stella. “One was that the car started to overheat. Therefore we needed to add a stop relatively early, which was to clean the radiators.
“So I’m not sure how much this was clear on television or for you following the race. But the stop that we did with Lando was actually because of reliability problems. And then there was a gearbox problem, which is independent of this overheating.
“And this gearbox problem would have happened in all cases. So today was not Lando’s day. He would have not finished the race. So if there’s a day to have all the problems in a single instance, then that was the day,” summed up Stella.
