Andrea Stella, McLaren F1 team principal, admitted that the timing of the swap at the end of the sprint between Brazilian leader Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris was not ideal and the team had intend to do it sooner.
McLaren F1 almost couldn't execute it due to a VSC at the end of the Sprint but, fortunately, the exchange had just taken place.
“We were monitoring the gaps with Leclerc and Verstappen before to see if we could have executed an easy overtake between Lando and Oscar, but in fact the gap never materialized, so we had to watch for a case of Safety Car or Virtual Safety Car.”
“Actually it came to light because of the incident with Nico Hulkenberg's car stopping on the track, so we executed it immediately. It was well done by the team, but it didn't would not have been possible without the collaboration of the two pilots.”
“We are really very happy with the discussions that are taking place at the moment and the support that Oscar is giving to Lando. This is the best result we could achieve for both championships.”
“Ideally it should have been done earlier, but the situation never materialized for it to be done safely, because as soon as you change places you would have the guy in third position who would have the opportunity to overtake a McLaren, and that would not fit with our principle that the team's result comes first.”
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