Starting second at the F1 Qatar GP, a victory for Lando Norris would have sealed the 2025 Formula 1 World Championship.
After 57 laps, though, things didn’t go quite his way. A Verstappen win, alongside some strategic missteps for McLaren, means the title fight will now be decided at the final race in Abu Dhabi. Norris leads the Dutchman by 12 points. Teammate Oscar Piastri is a further four away.
In the aftermath, Wolff, no stranger to championship finales, spoke about McLaren’s strategy and how it failed to pay off.
McLaren’s strategy gamble under the safety car
Lap 7 and Nico Hulkenberg’s Sauber is stranded in the run-off area after some contact with Pierre Gasly.
As the Safety Car was deployed, Verstappen and the majority of the field took to the pits for a quicker 16-second stop, rather than the usual 26-second stop.
McLaren, however, left both of their drivers on track, a decision that left Norris querying his team over the radio.
Wolff, dissecting the strategy, noted that the team seemed to be trying something different.
“Everybody tries to do their best,” he said.
“We discussed it this morning, it’s a super boring strategy. If you have a safety car at that stage, you have no choice than to take it.”
In F1, often the boring option is the safe one. By not pitting, McLaren gambled on strategy, hoping to gain track position.
“What they were thinking is to have more flexibility,” Wolff noted in his print media session. “But it was on the losing end that stop.”
The result was a major time deficit, meaning the McLarens needed to build a 25-second lead to stay ahead after their eventual stops, an impossible task against Max Verstappen in a Red Bull.
For McLaren, the championship is “theirs to lose”
Wolff, remembering the championship battle with his own drivers, Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg, understands the weight now bearing down on McLaren.
“Clearly we’ve been in this position, it’s more theirs to lose than Max’s to win,” he stated.
“It’s always easier to come from the back.
“If he were to win the championship, that would be an incredible comeback.”
Despite the relative outside shot of Verstappen winning the championship at this stage, it’s still possible.
And as Wolff notes, when “pressure creeps in, and you want to do it extra well.”
Should McLaren have attempted a double stack stop?
McLaren is receiving criticism for their strategy calls. Many are claiming that no pit stop was made as there was a desire not to favour Piastri over Norris.
In this scenario then, it’s been questioned why the team didn’t attempt to do a double stack pit stop.
Wolff claimed, “It could have been a double stack.”
“You just need to create the gap between the cars to allow that.”
Despite this, he recognised the structure and nature of the team. He noted that “the mentality of keeping the fight open between the two is clearly their policy.
“If you lose a championship, but you played it fairly between the two, this is the opposition that you can have.”
