Oscar Piastre says McLaren ‘looks like a fool’ but Andrea Stella defends failed Canadian GP tire gamble | F1 News

McLaren boss Andrea Stella has defended a failed Canadian Grand Prix tire gamble even as Oscar Piastre admitted the episode made the team look “stupid”.

With light rain falling in cold conditions in the build-up to Sunday’s race in Montreal, both Piastre and Lando Norris were among seven drivers who were intermediate for the start – Audi’s Nico Hulkenberg and Gabriel Bortoletto, Williams’ Carlos Sainz and Cadillac’s Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas were the others.

From third, Norris actually took the lead from the two Mercedes but pitted at the end of the second lap as his intermediates began to overheat.

Piastri said on the radio that McLaren had “mistaken” what was a problem with Racing Bulls’ Arvid Lindblad in which two extra formation laps took place, starting about seven minutes behind schedule.

“It was raining and between the song and getting into the car, it was pretty wet on the ground. You could clearly tell where it was wet and where it was dry,” Piastri said. Sky Sports F1.

“It wasn’t easy to get to the grid on the slicks, it was hard to get full throttle. Unfortunately for us, the rain stopped. A little more rain would have made us look like heroes. It didn’t, so we looked like fools.”

However, Stella felt that if the rain had “lasted for a few more minutes and started at the right time”, drivers on dry tires would have struggled.

“At that time you had to decide which tires to fit and not having a clear idea of ​​when the rain would stop, the track was greasy and the right tire at that time was the intermediate tyre,” he said.

“I was keen to see a race start at the time it should have started because I’m not sure how long it took for a double extra formation lap, but of course if you look at the pit lane it’s a dark gray to gray like dry.

“I think we always have to be a little careful about making decisions from results. I think you have to make decisions at the time they need to be made.

“The rain almost stopped after the five-minute signal, and then the double extra formation added a clear penalty to start at lap inter.”

Is McLaren weak in the cold?

Norris and Piastre locked out sprint qualifying in Montreal and second in qualifying behind the dominant upgraded Mercedes.

McLaren brought the new parts to Canada but did not run their new front wing after testing it in Friday’s only practice session.

Norris managed to split the Mercedes in Saturday’s sprint and returned to points-paying position on Sunday after going back on dry tyres.

However, he was forced to pit again to clean the radiators, then suffered a gearbox failure which caused his second retirement of the season.

“In the cold we couldn’t get the fronts up to temperature, which made the car difficult to handle, but still I think we were up front for decent points,” Norris said.

“There are still a lot of positives from the weekend. Our pace was strong, we fought with Mercedes and the support from the fans was great.

“We’ll investigate the failure, work on tire warm-ups in the cold, and come back stronger. We’ll learn from the calls we made and aim to turn that momentum into clean finishes and points next time.”

Piastri finished 11th after damaging his car – and receiving a 10-second penalty – after colliding with Williams’ Alex Albon as he tried to fight his way through the field.

Stella believes that, even if McLaren had started the race on dry tyres, neither Norris nor Piastre could have challenged for the podium.

“I don’t think we showed any competitive speed at the level we showed on Sunday. I can only attribute that to the lack of tire temperature,” he said.

“Drivers kept locking tires and going long into corners and the front tires didn’t work at all.

“I would say that even in a normal race, a race where we didn’t have any problems, looking at the speed of the other cars competing for the podium.”

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