Deep Papaya
The Montreal weekend ended as badly as it could for McLaren. The papaya team went from having monopolized the second row with Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri to finishing the Canadian GP without points, with the world champion retiring due to a gearbox problem and Piastri – burdened by a well-deserved penalty for ramming Albon’s Williams in an ill-advised overtaking attempt – 11th under the checkered flag.
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But the real negative turning point of the race for the papaya team came even before the start when it was decided to fit intermediate tires for the start. Norris and Piastri were the only ones to take this gamble among the top teams and in the end the gamble did not pay off. On the contrary. “We opted for intermediate tires five minutes before the start because the track was slippery and it was still raining – explained team principal Andrea Stella at the end of the GP – unfortunately, the rain stopped as soon as we fitted the tires, the track dried quickly and the two extra formation laps canceled out any advantage. With Lando we had a problem with the car, we had to stop to clean the radiators and then we had an irreparable gearbox failure. As for Oscar, the collision with Albon damaged the car and led to a penalty and even on a clear track we struggled to reach the tire temperatures necessary for a good race pace”.
The words of Norris and Piastri
The drivers are also bitter, starting with the reigning world champion Lando Norris, who hoped to replicate on Sunday the nice second place achieved on Saturday in the Sprint: “We decided to start on intermediate tires because it was still drizzling on the starting grid and, although the start was fantastic, the rain decreased and that choice proved wrong already after the first lap – admitted Norris – that’s how racing goes. Sometimes those decisions make you win a race, other times not, I take my share of responsibility for that choice. We also had to face a couple of early pit stops and, in the end, a mechanical failure that forced us to retire. With the cold we couldn’t get the front tires up to temperature, which made the car difficult to handle, but despite everything I think we were on the right track to score decent points”.
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Piastri, on the other hand, besides the strategy, must also blame a quite gross mistake in the duel with Albon: “It was not the day we hoped for. We decided to start on intermediates because the track was quite wet between the anthem and the moment of getting into the car, but in the end it proved to be a wrong choice. Then I suffered some damage in the incident with Albon. I apologize to him and the Williams team. After that, we did our best to try to recover, but on track it was really very difficult“.
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