Now, according to Autosport, the inner workings of McLaren's tactical decisions at the United States Grand Prix have been laid bare by team principal Andrea Stella. Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris had locked out the fourth row of the grid at the Circuit of The Americas after failing to challenge the Mercedes, Red Bulls, and Ferraris in Q3. But once the lights went out, the gap opened up immediately. Over the first seven laps, Piastri was losing one second per lap to race leader Kimi Antonelli—specifically 0.997s on average discounting lap one—while even failing to keep pace with a struggling George Russell, who pulled away by two tenths a lap.
With Norris complaining over the radio that he was being held up, the pit wall asked the Australian to wave his team-mate through. Piastri duly obliged at Turn 1 on lap eight, and Norris instantly checked out, pulling away by four seconds in just seven laps. Stella detailed that Lando simply excels at this particular track, whereas Oscar tends to struggle a bit more. The team boss pointed out that Oscar's superpower usually relies on building lap after lap once he creates references, but a circuit where every condition changes constantly exposes those limitations. Meanwhile, that chaos is precisely where Lando thrives by using his own superpower of being very adaptive, especially as the car slides.
That pre-race plan was clear: if Lando sat behind Oscar and Oscar could not keep up with the cars ahead, they would give Lando the chance to attack. Stella noted that this execution meant a great deal to the squad following their collision in the Singapore sprint race, proving that both drivers and the team ultimately prioritize the interests of McLaren. They had heavily reinforced how vital it was to pull together after Singapore to push the outfit back to a place where both cars sit on the front row and fight for wins.
On race day, McLaren rolled the dice on a daring one-stop strategy to battle the top runners, putting their faith in the hard tyres while rivals like the Ferrari duo of Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc alongside Max Verstappen opted for two stops. Norris held second place until lap 46 before those rivals inevitably caught and passed him, though he still managed to undercut Isack Hadjar and Russell to claim fifth place, with Piastri following suit to take seventh ahead of the Silver Arrow. Stella admitted they knew keeping Verstappen and Leclerc behind was a massive long shot, but the one-stop offered a lifeline if a safety car appeared—though it never did, prompting a lighthearted remark from the Italian about still waiting for compensation for the untimely VSC period that cost Norris a potential win in Madrid.
Ultimately, the team leaves content with their strategy execution, their understanding of the tyre choices, and the performance boost from their latest car upgrades. Even so, Stella was blunt about what comes next, stating they must improve their qualifying performance and keep refining the machine if they want to fight consistently for podiums and victories. That mission becomes all the more urgent as McLaren currently sits on a four-round podiumless streak, marking their worst spell of form by that metric since the final two rounds of the 2023 season and the first two of their title-winning 2024 campaign.
