Japanese Grand Prix: Max Verstappen steals Suzuka with McLaren blocked in the “rabbit hole”

The light of McLaren light in the race was the pit stop. Norris was about 1.5 seconds behind Verstappen while approaching, almost within the theoretical range of the “subsquarod”, in which a driver earns a position stopping first and using the time earned on fresh tires to be ahead when his rival leaves the pits.

But McLaren was canceled by an unfortunate series of circumstances.

They “grumbled” a stop with Norris on the 18th lap, with a false radio message that tells him to put. Red Bull ignored them.

So Mercedes stopped George Russell on the 19th lap. His rhythm on new tires threatened to underestimate him in front of plestments. And this meant that McLaren had to put the plate on the 20th lap to be sure to hold her position. Although McLaren was faster than Mercedes, the difficulty of overtaking meant that he did not believe that Piastri would be able to pass Russell on the right way.

This gave the game to Red Bull, who realized that Norris would arrive next time. So they stopped Verstappen. Keeping Norris would not have worked out: he would have wasted more time on his old tires. So he also had to stage.

Even then, McLaren has modeled a fragment of possibilities. Norris’ stop was a second faster than that of Verstappen and the British was halfway along the Red Bull when they left the pits. But Verstappen had the right to maintain his line, and did it.

The restricting track meant that Norris’ trajectory brought him to the grass. He had to retire and the advantage remained with Verstappen.

“Maybe we could have tried more with the strategy,” said Norris. “We will discuss it.

“Could we have gone first? Yes. But then you are at risk of safety cars. If you make a three laps box before and the safety cars come out, you seem stupid.”

Stella said it wasn’t “unclear” if the undercut would work. He said they would “examine” the data. But on Sunday evening he was not prepared to say that this was a race that escaped, as McLaren subsequently said about their strategy choices in Canada and Silverstone last year.

Although McLaren was the fastest car, other circumstances of Suzuka played against them once Verstappen was on pole.

Their car has an advantage of Tyre clothing and this is traditionally tall in Suzuka. Last year, this could have meant that their advantage of rhythm would grew through the Stints, creating a possibility of overtaking.

But the first sector of the Giro had been re -emerged and this led to a low degradation, so they had lost one of their theoretical advantages for their rivals.

“So, for example, for example, nails the qualifying laps as Max did yesterday,” said Stella, “then it’s a bit difficult to get out of the rabbit den.”