Lando Norris could have won the British Grand Prix if he hadn’t made the “mistake” of fitting soft tyres for the final stint when he had two new sets of mediums.
On Sunday at Silverstone, Norris battled Lewis Hamilton, Max Verstappen and at one point even his teammate Oscar Piastri for the win.
«Strategically, this is where McLaren made a mistake…»
Leading the Grand Prix ahead of Hamilton and Verstappen as the drivers made their crucial final pit stop of the afternoon, Red Bull put the Pirelli hards on Verstappen’s RB20 and Mercedes put the softs on Hamilton’s W15.
Norris was the last of the leaders to make the change.
McLaren: “We can choose a medium to cover people like Verstappen or we choose a soft to cover people like Hamilton.”
Norris: “Hamilton! I think Hamilton, or do you think middleweight? I don’t care.”
McLaren: “We are going to go slower. Please come into the pits for this lap.”
Norris went slightly over the line in the box and not only lost the lead to Hamilton, but was unable to keep up with the seven-time world champion and fell into the clutches of Verstappen.
The Red Bull driver snatched second place from him on lap 48, with Norris six seconds behind as he crossed the line. It was a day that could have been better had McLaren put him on the same medium tyres as his team-mate Piastri, who showed good pace in the final stint.
What the data says about Lando Norris’s missed opportunity
The discovery of important data on Oscar Piastri adds to Lando Norris’ suffering at Silverstone
British GP Conclusions: Lewis Hamilton’s refusal, Perez’s response to Ricciardo, McLaren hurt
“Strategically, this is where McLaren made a mistake,” Chandhok told Sky F1.
“We heard on the radio that they said that we should cover Lewis with the softs and Verstappen with the hards.
“Personally, I think they should have done the best they could, and their best strategy was to put on a new set of medium tyres. They did that with Piastri, and Norris suffered on that set of soft tyres.
“Norris was struggling on those soft tyres, what’s worth remembering is that when they came out of the pits for that final stint, Piastri was 15 seconds behind Norris, he gained 10 seconds in that final stint.
“If McLaren had put Norris on a set of new medium tyres, even if he had started behind Lewis, against Lewis on a set of used soft tyres, I think Norris would have won the Grand Prix.”
Norris admits McLaren “wasted it”, telling media including PlanetF1.com: “I’ve heard that a lot lately so I hate to say it again. But yeah, I mean, a lot of things were going well. We blew it at the last stop.
“One lap, but I don’t think it was one lap either. I think even if I had done the perfect lap, our decision to put on the soft tyres was wrong. I think Lewis would have won anyway.”
“Two calls on our part cost us everything. So, especially in this case, it is quite disappointing.”
But McLaren didn’t just make a mistake with Norris, as Ralf Schumacher reprimanded them for not piling on his teammates in the first round of pit stops.
Coming into action with Norris leading the race ahead of Piastri, McLaren brought the Briton into the pits before leaving Piastri out for a further lap to avoid a double pile-up.
Piastri slipped and slid across the circuit and was left in sixth place after his pit stop.
Schumacher, commenting on the race Sky GermanyHe followed the situation and said: “What will McLaren do now? Both of them have to come in, and Piastri is second…
—Uh, that’s a very bad decision.
Piastri finished the Grand Prix in fourth place, allowing McLaren to close the gap to Ferrari to just seven points in the battle for second place in the Constructors’ Championship.
Read next: British GP driver ratings: Lewis Hamilton not a perfect 10, Perez fails again
