Why McLaren shouldn't have to worry about what people think

Mid-way through the Hungarian Grand Prix, as the F1 TV camera zoomed in on a pensive looking McLaren racing director Randeep Singh, I recalled a conversation with him six years ago.

“At the beginning of a grand prix there are as many strategic permutations as there are stars in the sky,” he’d said. Even if, say, a race was virtually nailed on as a one-stopper, circumstances can change: weather, safety cars, other competitors diverging from their expected patterns of behaviour.

It’s a dynamically evolving picture, and at the end it is very tempting to look at the result and draw firm conclusions based on the outcome rather than the context of the individual decisions that led there.

Many of the online conversations about McLaren’s strategies for Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri in the Hungarian race have been bizarre, to say the least. As dictated by the tropes of toxic fandom, there are those who see it as a ‘fix’ – “2007 all over again”, as some of the more peculiarly opinionated have put it – by which they mean the team is favouring one driver over the other.

This is, of course, nonsense on many levels. It’s very easy to weigh decisions based on knowledge of the outcome. Hindsight enables utmost precision. But as Singh pointed out, it’s a fundamental mistake to judge the quality of a decision based on hindsight, rather than what was known at the time the decision was made.

We were speaking in the context of the 2019 German GP, where blazing hot conditions at the start of the weekend gave way to storms and flash flooding in the area on the Sunday.

Changing conditions throughout the race caught most teams out at some point, and the final order was decided by two late safety car periods as a dry line began to form.

From the nether regions of the midfield, Daniil Kvyat finished third for Toro Rosso and Lance Stroll was fourth for Racing Point as a result of pitting for slicks at what turned out to be the opportune moment.

Sainz’s missed 2019 German GP podium triggered the hindsight merchants

Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images

McLaren could have pitted Carlos Sainz at the same time, decided the risks outweighed the potential benefits (Valtteri Bottas had just spun his Mercedes out of a podium position), and collected fifth rather than the third that went to Kvyat.

The decision was correct based on the available data at the time: Sainz was secure in the top six and had more to lose if he went the way of Bottas. But still the hindsight merchants harrumphed that his team had failed him.

In Hungary this year, the data pointed to a two-stop being clearly faster than a one-stop. But of course, this being the Hungaroring, track position plays a part. And for several laps after the leaders made their first stops it looked like Norris was locked into a very unfavourable strategy.

But outside circumstances played a key part: Fernando Alonso, having initially backed up those behind him in a long queue from fifth to 19th, picked up his pace just before the leaders pitted, making the gap into which they would emerge less clearly defined.

What’s McLaren supposed to do? Lock both drivers into the same preordained strategy just to appease the tinfoil hat brigade?

And then Charles Leclerc’s pace dropped off a cliff in the final stint, rendering him no longer a threat. Until that point, Norris was on a mission to minimise the downsides for losing all that track position at the beginning of the race. Piastri had been trying to beat Leclerc.

Undercutting the Ferrari at the second stop was the only realistic option to achieve that after it didn’t happen first time around.

“It wasn’t obvious that we just had enough pace to blow past him and go and win that way,” as Piastri said later.

What’s McLaren supposed to do? Lock both drivers into the same preordained strategy just to appease the tinfoil hat brigade? Or pursue a policy of adapting dynamically so that one of them – whoever it may be – wins the race?

You can’t please all of the people all of the time. So don’t bother trying – focus on winning. Because this was McLaren’s 200th grand prix victory. You may remember that the gap between 182 and 183 was nine long years.

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Singh celebrates on the podium with Piastri and Norris at last year's Hungarian Grand Prix

Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images