F1
Andrea Stella outlines why McLaren opted not to pit their drivers under the lap-seven Safety Car in a move that let in Max Verstappen to claim an unexpected win to set up three-way showdown; watch the title-deciding Abu Dhabi GP live on Sky Sports F1 this weekend
Monday 1 December 2025 00:43, UK
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McLaren team principal Andrea Stella has explained the thinking behind the team’s decision not to pit their drivers under the Safety Car during the Qatar Grand Prix in a race that provided a major late twist in Formula 1’s title race.
It proved a costly mistake, as McLaren lost victory to title rival Max Verstappen in a race that had appeared set to be theirs, when they kept leader Piastri and third-placed Lando Norris out on track after the Safety Car was deployed on lap seven. Only one other car did not pit on that lap.
Piastri finished second, with Norris fourth.
Verstappen’s win, his fifth in the last eight races, confirmed a three-way title showdown with the McLaren drivers at the season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix this weekend, live on Sky Sports F1.
Norris leads Verstappen by 12 points with Piastri a further four points adrift.
A crestfallen Piastri said immediately afterwards on team radio that he was “speechless” about how his race had unfolded from the lead, while Norris admitted it was “not our finest day, but that’s life”.
Stella said that avoiding Norris having to double stack in the pit lane behind Piastri, which could have cost the Briton positions, was a “consideration” in the strategy decision, but “wasn’t the main reason”.
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The season’s penultimate Grand Prix turned on the events of lap seven when a collision between Alpine’s Pierre Gasly and Sauber’s Nico Hulkenberg into the Lusail International Circuit’s first turn brought out the Safety Car when the latter’s car spun into the gravel.
With a 25-lap limit on tyre stints in place for the high-speed Qatar event due to concerns over wear – which effectively made it a two-stop race – lap seven was conveniently the earliest point in the 57-lap race at which drivers could pit and then complete two equal stints of 25 laps to the finish.
Drivers lose less race time pitting under a Safety Car compared to normal racing conditions.
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But McLaren surprisingly opted to keep race leader Piastri out, with Norris following him to start lap eight behind the Safety Car. But Red Bull did pit Verstappen, who was running second between the McLaren drivers at the time, with the Dutchman followed in to the pit lane by 16 other drivers.
Verstappen was right behind Piastri and Norris in the queue when the race resumed on lap 11 and now only needed to pit once more, whereas the McLarens still needed to stop twice. It was a situation McLaren were unable to rescue through pace alone with Verstappen ultimately beating Piastri to the win by eight seconds and Norris finishing fourth behind Williams’ Carlos Sainz.
Explaining their thinking behind the costly decision, Stella said: “Effectively we have conceded one pit stop to a rival that was fast today so obviously we did it for a reason.
“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 seven.
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“Everyone pitted and this made our staying out ultimately being incorrect from a race outcome point of view, and because Verstappen was fast and also because the tyre degradation was low ultimately this decision was significantly penalising because clearly Oscar was in control of the race and deserved to win it.”
The McLaren chief added: “It was a decision. As a matter of fact it wasn’t the correct decision.”
Piastri was leading Verstappen by 2.6 seconds and Norris by 4.4 seconds on lap seven just before the Safety Car was called.
Norris, in turn, was 1.7s ahead of fourth-placed Kimi Antonelli and a further two seconds ahead of Sainz.
Stella added: “Certainly for Lando there was the extra consideration of losing additional time because of the double-stacked pit stop, 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.”
“I asked, what are we doing? Because we were getting pretty close to the pit entry and I hadn’t had a call yet.
“So, you know, I think when you don’t get a call instantly when the Safety Car comes out, clearly there’s probably some discussions going on about what to do.
“And in that situation, you have to trust the team because they have a lot more information than the driver in the car on where gaps are and stuff like that. So, yeah, I mean, in that scenario I have to trust what the team decide.”
McLaren have gone to great lengths this year to ensure fairness between their two drivers in their respective quests to become world champion for the first time.
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The team’s ‘papaya rules’ provide the framework for how they operate evenly-handily on track but their strategy miscue in Qatar prompted debate whether, on this occasion, they compromised the team’s decision making with the possibility that a stop for Norris immediately after his team-mate could have cost him positions, to Antonelli and potentially Sainz too.
Sky Sports F1’s Bernie Collins:
“Piastri had a three-second gap to Verstappen. 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 team-mate, open a gap, how many positions will he lose?
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“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.”
Sky Sports F1’s Martin Brundle:
“I don’t think papaya rules cost McLaren. I think they just read it wrong.
“They thought they would get a Safety Car opportunity later on, they wanted that flexibility.
“Pretty much everybody else doubled stacked. Andrea made a point that he thought half the field would stay out, because were right on the cusp – lap seven was the first point where pitting made sense.
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“They misunderstood it all and got it wrong. It would have hurt Lando Norris stacking. Who knows whether they could have fed them out?
“I don’t think that was on their mind. I think they thought they were doing the right thing strategically for the race to keep that flexibility later on.
“But the tyres didn’t fall apart and Max Verstappen was plenty fast enough.”
Lando Norris:
“It’s nothing to do with that. Everyone keeps thinking that, but it’s got nothing to do with that. We’re free to race.
“Red Bull were just as quick today as they were yesterday. They did a better job as a team and made the right call. That’s it.
“We’ll review things, see what we could have done better. We already know – we didn’t make the right decision. You can’t get them all right, you know.”
Oscar Piastri:
“I’m not sure today’s decision was to do with that. We potentially just got it wrong. I will speak to the team.”
For Piastri, the result was particularly galling given his front-running form ahead of his two rivals throughout the weekend.
He claimed pole position for both the Sprint, which he won, and then the main Grand Prix and had been looking for his first win on a Sunday since the Dutch Grand Prix at the end of August.
And although he still finished two places ahead of Norris, Verstappen is now four points closer to the Briton on points than he is, making Piastri the absolute outsider for the title in Abu Dhabi.
“I haven’t spoken to anyone but I feel pretty c**p as you can imagine. I don’t know what to say,” he told Sky Sports F1.
“We didn’t get it right with the strategy. The pace was very strong. I didn’t put a foot wrong. Just a shame.
“I left it [whether to pit] in the team’s hands to decide what the best strategy was. They had more information than I do.”
Piastri added in the post-race press conference: “I think on a personal level, I feel like I’ve lost a win today. You know, in Vegas, I lost a P4 [through the team’s double disqualification].
“Obviously, for the team, it was a pretty painful weekend. But, yeah, I think for me personally, this probably hurts more.”
The 2025 F1 season concludes with the title-deciding Abu Dhabi Grand Prix live on Sky Sports F1 from Friday. Stream Sky Sports with NOW – no contract, cancel anytime
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