McLaren had a disastrous Sunday at the Canadian Grand Prix of Formula 1, and the team was pointed out as responsible for its own problems after a strategic mistake at the start of the race. The choice of intermediate tires at a moment of track transition ended up triggering a sequence of errors and incidents that ruined the race for Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri in Montreal.
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This analysis was made by Bernie Collins, former Formula 1 strategist, and highlighted how McLaren’s decision completely compromised the team’s race at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve. According to her, the team ‘created its own bad luck’ by opting for intermediate tires while most competitors bet on dry track compounds.
McLaren started from the second row of the grid with Norris and Piastri and was accompanied only by Audi, Cadillac, and Carlos Sainz in choosing intermediate tires. Initially, the decision seemed to work, as Norris took the lead right at the first corner. However, shortly after, both had to return to the pits to switch to slick tires.
This extra stop caused both drivers to fall to the middle of the pack, a situation that ended up exposing the team to more risks during the race. Piastri finished only 11th after receiving a ten-second penalty for touching Alex Albon at the hairpin corner, one of the trickiest points on the Canadian track.
Collins stated that the Australian shouldn’t even have been fighting for position with the Williams driver at that moment in the race: “There are days when you create your own luck or lack thereof, and everything that went wrong for McLaren started with the decision to start on intermediate tires,” she told Sky Sports F1.
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The former strategist also commented on the incident involving Piastri and Albon: “The hairpin was tricky. We saw many drivers make mistakes there, even on their own. Alex Albon ended up just a victim of the situation,” Collins said, referring to the contact that forced the Australian to make another stop to change the front wing.
On the other side of the garage, Norris retired from the race on lap 40 due to a gearbox problem. Before that, the Brit had already made a second stop to try to mitigate an overheating issue in his MCL40.
According to Collins, running stuck in the midfield traffic also increased the risks for McLaren: “The reliability problems could have happened anyway, but when you are in the midfield pack, there is a greater risk of picking up debris on the track. Often it is there that these damages occur,” she added.
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