How Australian GP proved McLaren's progress on critical strategy calls

Sochi 2021, Montreal and Silverstone 2024 – all three races hung above McLaren, Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri during the 2025 Australian Grand Prix.

And, as how clouds heralding the unpredictable swings of wet racing are unwelcome for a team with clearly the best Formula 1 car in the dry, as the MCL39 now very clearly is, the memory spectres of those events were not what team and drivers wanted hovering above them last Sunday.

Well, for McLaren and Norris at least, they have all been well and truly banished by the latter’s win at the season opener. For Piastri and the Melbourne crowd, the wait for a home winner goes on – but he dealt with it with the classy sangfroid statements that are fast becoming Piastri’s trademark.

In this victory, McLaren’s strategy calls must be lauded, while this time it was Red Bull of which the questions were being asked. This covers the orange team’s progress and highlights how possessing the best car can provide critical breathing room in the most stressful moments of pitstop strategy.

Red Bull insiders have told Autosport that its simulation software was indicating Max Verstappen (excellent yet again in the wet with an inferior car) was one second unsafe to overcut Norris at the second round of pitstops that kicked off when the rain returned and the two McLarens were skating dramatically into the gravel.

But that Norris had been able to erase some of the 22.3s lead Verstappen had briefly possessed as the McLaren was firing up its intermediates (it was down to 21.6s when the Red Bull pitted) shows just how well the MCL39 package is operating in all conditions. This was shown also by Norris’s commanding pole gap to Verstappen and in how the Dutchman was a massive 18.3s adrift by the time of the first pitstops - under the safety car caused by Fernando Alonso’s crash.

The McLaren can just look after its tyres than much better – particularly the soft rears during qualifying laps in Melbourne. It was Red Bull-esque, really.

Norris and McLaren were caught out in the rain at the 2021 Russian GP when the British driver had his first chance to win in F1

Photo by: Charles Coates / Motorsport Images

Now, here’s why Sochi matters nearly four years on.

The last Russian race was Norris’s first chance to win in F1, from his first career pole in the category. It was blown in a storm of tetchy radio messages and unfortunate decisions, which combined with the lashing rain that was causing them. It all thwarted Norris and helped then Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton deliver a 100th F1 win instead of another first for a burgeoning McLaren star.

McLaren has long insisted Norris wasn’t the main factor in what went wrong in Sochi – something team principal Andrea Stella made clear in the aftermath of the Briton’s breakthrough win in Miami last year. It reflected on how the team wasn’t then forceful enough in explaining what was about to unfold.

Watching on Sunday, you could hear the lingering memories of that defeat most clearly as Norris asked, under the Alonso safety car, “[it’s] better to go for the inter now, no?” when informed the rain wasn’t going to miss the track as previously informed.

Montreal and Silverstone matter because those were races last year where McLaren just made the wrong calls and lost out – Norris making clear for the first time last Sunday how he views Canada 2024 as a lost victory

But Norris’s race engineer Will Joseph’s response was calm and thorough: “we do not want to fit the wrong tyre before the conditions [merit it]… focus particularly on front warm-up”.

Joseph: “Rain expected in four-and-a-half minutes. Up to Class 3. It will last two laps at the moment.

Norris: “So, what do you think? Kind of…”

Joseph: “Basically, if the water hits the track and the track is wet, we fit the inters. Ok, so safety car is Turn 11…”

Norris and race engineer Joseph had a clearer understanding in Melbourne even when under pressure

Photo by: Alastair Staley / Motorsport Images

Then, later, with the race in green conditions again.

Norris: “Seems like it will be next lap, no?”

Joseph: “We don’t want to jump too early – class ‘half’ in pitlane.”

Next lap – 44.

Norris: “It’s a bit more – Turns 11, 12, 13 section.”

Joseph: “Just class ‘half’ in pitlane.”

Norris: “Yes, but it’s already effecting the track. I’m struggling a little bit.”

Then, just after Joseph delivered on last “still just class ‘half’ in the pitlane, the race’s critical moment arrived…

But such extended back and forth was precisely the lesson McLaren learned in Sochi, with more communication preferred. And while to some this exchange might’ve raised uncomfortable questions, it was actually just further evidence of the work both parties have done ever since Sochi.

Indeed, when the rain hit again last Sunday, Stella explained that by having had this discussion with Joseph, Norris knew exactly what to do: head to the pits. He got lucky with his Turn 12 off ahead of Piastri – and it has been suggested that it was his late shootout Turn 6 gravelstrike that damaged his floor, not the bigger Turn 12 moment – but so often in sport luck goes the way of the dominant package.

McLaren did lose Piastri from the victory fight when the home hero slid off as the rain hit

Photo by: Sam Bagnall / Motorsport Images

Montreal and Silverstone matter because those were races last year where McLaren just made the wrong calls and lost out – Norris making clear for the first time last Sunday how he views Canada 2024 as a lost victory.

This time, the team’s progress paid it back. Yes, in a wet race there’s plenty of luck in getting the right judgment, but Norris’s lap 44 stop timing was ultimately the best moment. See how Andrea Kimi Antonelli, Lance Stroll and Nico Hulkenberg gained coming in here too. Red Bull’s gamble/gambit just turned out wrong - unfortunately for Verstappen’s squad.

But McLaren’s pitstop strategy calls were not the only (internally detested) topic from 2024 to get questioned post-race. Because, immediately this term, McLaren did employ team orders. Admittedly though, these were brief and temporary during Piastri’s impressive mid-race surge once Verstappen had slid himself out of the chase.

Stella wisely pointed out “the good thing with Oscar is that you don't have to do much of the psychological exercises of convincing him not to get too upset with himself or with the situation”

F1 fans can’t stand such orders – and understandably so given their usage history. But, at that stage as Norris and Piastri lapped the Haas cars and Liam Lawson, only tripping up traversing the switch to slicks could stop them winning. Such was the distance to Verstappen at this point.

“[We needed] clarity as to the weather prediction and what this meant for how we should have used the tyres, and until we had closed the matter of overtaking the backmarkers,” Stella explained post-race. “Once this was completed and the weather was assessed, then we reopened the racing.”

The call, once reversed, was therefore understandable.

Its use does risk angering Piastri and his camp at an early stage of the season and awkwardly in front of his home fans. In car, he delivered his feelings in a masterclass of understatement in messages to his engineer, Tom Stallard, that were worthy of his “move of a world champion” Abu Dhabi 2024 lap one assessment of Verstappen’s dive there.

Piastri will aim to bounce back in China this weekend

Photo by: McLaren

But Piastri accepted the order both in car and afterwards. And also admitted his earlier pushing had “killed” his front left tyre on his first set of inters – contributing to his Turn 6 gravelstrike.

Afterwards, Stella wisely pointed out “the good thing with Oscar is that you don't have to do much of the psychological exercises of convincing him not to get too upset with himself or with the situation”.

“Because he is one of the mentally strongest drivers that I've ever met,” Stella added. “So, I'm sure in China he will be back and very soon he will have important results.”

This suggests Piastri will come out blazing in Shanghai in the manner with which he ended his post-grass-mowing recovery to ninth – including that early candidate for pass of the season on Hamilton at Melbourne’s Turn 9 swoop on the final lap.

Indeed, this may even spur him to reverse the one tenth difference Norris enjoyed in qualifying that was so critical to the team order’s deployment in the first place. This would be ideal for F1 overall, as their battle with Verstappen for the title is going to be fascinating. I’m reserving judgement on Ferrari’s ability to put Hamilton and Charles Leclerc fully into that, for now.

Overall, both Norris and Piastri look the part of champions. And McLaren, as it did in actually becoming a champion again in the tense 2024 Abu Dhabi finale, these days really does so too. The Melbourne calls are just further proof.

McLaren remain the favourites for F1 honours in 2025

Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images