McLaren conspiracy theories return as Stella explains Qatar GP strategy call

Conspiracy theories regarding McLaren’s treatment of Oscar Piastri have resurfaced following a key strategic error in the Qatar Grand Prix that seemingly cost the Australian victory – and severely damaged his hopes of winning the world championship. 

Having run 1-3 with Piastri ahead of Norris in the opening laps, only McLaren and Esteban Ocon failed to box as the Safety Car was deployed early in Qatar, a point Andrea Stella has acknowledged as a mistake but one which has sparked conspiracy theories back into life, with several high-profile and well-informed supporters.

‘Only McLaren internally know the real answer to that’

McLaren was leading the early laps at the Lusail International circuit with pole-sitter Piastri running P1 ahead of Max Verstappen, who got the jump on Norris at the start to run in the middle of a McLaren sandwich.

Race strategy, and notably the mandatory two-stopper ordered by Pirelli, was thrown into the mix on Lap 6 when Nico Hulkenberg crashed out of the race in an incident with Pierre Gasly that brought out the Safety Car, allowing the field to box on Lap 7.

With the race scheduled for 57 laps, and a maximum stint length of 25 laps, it offered the field a free stop and an opportunity to reach the end with just one more stop.

Piastri stayed out. Verstappen pitted. Norris stayed out. The rest of the field, excluding Ocon, also pitted.

Commentators and fans around the world immediately questioned McLaren’s decision as the team effectively handed Verstappen a free pit stop, while both Piastri and Norris would still need to make two, potentially green-flag, stops.

That’s exactly how it played out, McLaren handing the win to Verstappen, who crossed the line eight seconds ahead of Piastri. Norris was fourth as he also lost out to Carlos Sainz.

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Former Aston Martin strategist Bernie Collins reckons the much-spoken-about “papaya rules”, based on fairness in what was once an almost certain McLaren 1-2 in the standings, came back to bite.

“Piastri had a three-second gap to Verstappen,” she explained on Sky F1. “With that advantage, I don’t understand for Oscar Piastri, if it was a standalone car, why you wouldn’t pit?

“For Lando Norris, it’s a little more difficult. He has to stack with his teammate, open a gap. How many positions will he lose?

“If you ask about papaya rules, hesitation in stacking Norris and holding him back from potentially achieving everything he could, has hurt.

“Only McLaren internally know the real answer to that. They have a lot to go through.”

Collins, though, wasn’t the only one perplexed by McLaren’s decision not to pit.

“I still don’t understand why McLaren didn’t box Oscar under the SC…” wrote former F1 driver Karun Chandhok on X.

“He had a 6.8 second gap to Kimi behind Lando so would have come out clearly in the lead ahead of Max without having to wait for traffic.”

But nearing the end of a season in which McLaren has faced accusations of bias towards Norris, former Red Bull mechanic Calum Nicholas replied to Chandhok’s post: “You understand fully why 😂”

McLaren, was quick to shut down any suggestion that it didn’t pit either Piastri or Norris as the latter would’ve lost time queueing behind his teammate in the pit box.

Instead, said team principal Stella, the team was concerned both drivers would lose time and positions as it thought they’d be thrown into traffic.

“Well, certainly for Lando there was the extra consideration, as you say, of losing additional time because of the double-stacked pit stop,” Stella explained to the media, including PlanetF1.com, after the grand prix.

“So it was in the consideration, but it wasn’t the main reason not to stop both cars.

“We thought that traffic could have been a problem for both cars, and in reality that was not the right interpretation of the situation at the time that we should have had.”

As it turned out, they would not have been in traffic as 16 of the remaining 19 cars all pitted.

“Effectively,” Stella confessed, “we conceded one pit stop to a rival that was fast.

“Obviously we did it for a reason and the reason was that we didn’t want to end up in traffic after the pit stop, but obviously all the other cars and teams had a different opinion in relation to a Safety Car at Lap 7.

“Everyone pitted, and this made our staying out ultimately be incorrect from a race outcome point of view.”

McLaren will launch a review of the strategy blunder, with Stella adamant the team will learn from it.

“I think in terms of the misjudgment it is something that we will have to review, discussing internally,” Stella added.

“We will have to assess some factors like, for instance, whether there was a certain bias in the way we were thinking that led us as a group to think that not all cars necessarily would have pitted.

“There are sometimes some objective reasons and sometimes there may be some biases in the way you think. We will have to go through the review in a very thorough way, but what’s important is that we do it as usual in a way that is constructive, is analytical.

“Racing is tough, racing may give you tough lessons, but this is the history of champions. This is just the history of Formula 1, this is the true nature of racing.

“We are disappointed, but if anything as soon as we start the review we will get even more determined to learn from our lessons, adapt and be stronger as a team.”

McLaren heads into the season finale with Norris 12 points up on Verstappen, and Piastri a further four points off the pace.

With 25 points still in play, any of the three could win the F1 2025 World title in Abu Dhabi.

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