After the race, one question asked of McLaren was whether pitting on the following lap was the best idea, or should Norris have stayed out?
Norris said: “I had to come in at the end of the lap because it was the only chance.
“It was still effectively some pit loss, (but) the fact that everyone’s kind of on colder tyres and you’re still minimising the pit loss.
“The medium tyre (on which Norris had started the race) was destroyed and the hard tyre (to which Antonelli and Verstappen switched) was amazing.
“But the pace was very, very strong and on the hard tyre… I know they were stuck (behind Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc, who stayed out under the VSC), we caught up 13, 14 seconds or more, almost. So, plenty of positives. A day full of positives, just one thing let it all down.”
McLaren team principal Andrea Stella said: “We considered staying out, but you have to accept the fact that now you are on relatively used medium tyres. And the people behind you will be on new hard. So you’re never going to open a gap on people on new hard.”
The other question was whether McLaren would have been wise to anticipate that the race director would call the VSC and pit Norris before it was deployed.
McLaren team principal Andrea Stella said: “In hindsight, that would have been a good idea.”
But he pointed out that, in the moment, it would have come with risks. The long pit lane at the Madring – the longest on the calendar – meant a pit stop cost a lot of time.
Stella said: “I would have to review with my engineers, see whether it was kind of obvious that it would end up in a virtual safety car. Therefore, you try to anticipate or not.
“Here, the problem is that you need to be extremely careful, because it’s 27 seconds if you don’t pit under a virtual safety car.
“So if you get it wrong, it would be extremely penalising. From the lead, you pit unnecessarily, and now you have lost the victory.
“So a good rule is to respond to what is a fact, to what is the real condition of the circuit.
“But we will definitely take a look as to whether in these conditions it was just simply, you know, obvious that he would end up in a virtual safety car. I cannot answer at the moment.”
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