Lando Norris finished third in Sunday’s race with Oscar Piastri fourth, the pair having run first and second on the road ahead of the first round of pit stops.
Piastri‘s race unravelled when he was left out a lap longer that his team-mate at his first stop, with tyre choice at Norris‘ final stop blunting his chances.
Rain on Lap 26 turned the race on its head.
The McLaren pair had raced their way to the front of the pack, with the pit wall calling in Norris as the weather turned.
Piastri trailed his team-mate by less than a second at the time, McLaren opting to leave him out for another lap rather than have him stack in pit lane.
It was a decision that ultimately cost Piastri in the region of 18 seconds.
The Australian revealed following the race that the decision was collaborative, a point Stella confirmed as he suggested the 23-year-old should have been more assertive.
“Not only should he have pushed but we should have pushed harder for the double stack because by delaying Oscar’s stop by one lap we lost much more time than the time we would have lost in a double stack pit stop,” the Italian admitted.
“So in hindsight, that was the right thing to do, stop both cars at the same time and we take the learning from this experience and we will do better next time.”
At the time, the McLaren pit wall was wrestling with what would have been the least worst option, with Piastri effectively guaranteed to lose out to some extent no matter the decision.
By stacking, he’d have lost time waiting for Norris to be serviced. By staying out, he lost time as track conditions deteriorated.
“These are the two things that you need to weigh,” Stella said.
“I think we were a little greedy that we didn’t want to accept that we would have lost time with the double stack.
“Sometimes you just have to be patient and accept that you’re going to lose time but just do the right thing rather than hoping that one lap more is not going to cost that much – especially when the rain was pretty steady, so it’s not like he’s going to face easier conditions staying out one more lap.
“I think Oscar would have been in a really strong position today, like at least as strong as Lando in terms of opportunities to win the race.
“We should have just forced Oscar to say like ‘sorry mate it’s going to be double stack’,” he added.
“The driver is driving. I think we are asking too much of the drivers.
“They should be doing a good job driving, keeping on track on right tyres in wet conditions and by the way process the whole timing thing.
“That’s why there’s a pit wall. That should help the drivers and in this case we have to say that we missed some opportunities.”
Instead, the blunder saw Piastri rejoin the race sixth, some 18 seconds back from his team-mate following his first stop.
It wasn’t the only error from the McLaren pit wall.
Having all but scuppered Piastri’s chances of victory, it arguably cost Norris a shot too.
Leading the race approaching the final round of stops, the Brit was undercut by eventual winner Lewis Hamilton.
The Mercedes driver had pitted a lap earlier, taking on a set of soft compound tyres with 15 laps remaining.
McLaren called Norris in on Lap 39 where it opted for a set of soft tyres, despite having a new set of mediums available which Hamilton did not.
Complicating matters, Norris slid long in the pit box, slowing the stop while his tyres didn’t have the life he needed to attack to regain the lead.
“The right thing to do was definitely to pit at the same time [as Hamilton] but we wanted to have a very safe transition onto the dry tyres and we lost a bit of time as well at the pit stop,” Stella admitted.
“We thought that with one lap more we could still keep the lead in fairness.”
The McLaren boss argued that, even without the slow stop, holding onto the lead against Hamilton would have been difficult.
“This doesn’t guarantee that when going to corner three or four you would still be ahead,” he reasoned.
“This is another one in which, with the benefit of hindsight, if I can do the race again, I will pit at the same time as Hamilton and Verstappen.
“Obviously this would leave the question as to which tyres,” he added.
“Pitting one lap later gives you the possibility to observe what your competitors do and I think that going on soft wasn’t the right call for us.
“In fact, we degraded the tyres too much to be able to retain the position on [Max] Verstappen and, in fairness, Lewis did a really good job of making the soft tyres last the entire stint.”
Verstappen pitted on Lap 38, the same lap as Hamilton, and fitted a set of hard compound tyres that allowed the Red Bull Racing driver to chase down and pass Norris in the closing stages.
Meanwhile, Piastri had fitted a set of new mediums, and turned in times as much as two-seconds per lap faster than those ahead.
Had Norris taken the medium tyres instead of the softs, it could well have netted McLaren victory.
Instead, the Brit’s preference the red-walled rubber and unwillingness for the pit wall to overrule that choice consigned him to third place.
“In those conditions, we wanted to check also with Lando what his preference was, what we should be going after, and one aspect was also do you think it will be tricky? This we didn’t ask,” Stella admitted.
“The sense of asking with Lando, deciding with Lando, was ‘will it be tricky going on a C2 compound in these conditions?’
“In fairness, as a matter of fact, it wasn’t that tricky because Verstappen on a hard compound managed the transition to the dry tyres without big issues.
“So I think this one was a decision that from the pit wall we should have taken once again.
“Like in stopping Oscar in the double-stack, we should have taken the responsibility to say the medium is just the right tyre, we go for it.
“In checking with Lando, we kind of self-doubted and this led us to follow this direction which, in hindsight, was important.”
“Definitely the fact that Lewis went on soft is one of the disturbing factors towards the fact that we actually were going on medium, if makes sense,” Stella added.
“I think there the bet was, will the soft make it to the end and how much gap will the soft gain at the start in transition compared to going there on medium?
“The medium will be faster at the end but how much time do you lose in the first two, three laps on a medium and is there any risk that you put a wheel on a wet patch and you lose the car.
“In this respect we I think we were too influenced by the fact that Lewis went on soft/
“We should have been more like medium is the right tyre.”
Acknowledging the teams failings, Stella took ownership of both errors.
“We have the possibility to make the call, we have more information, we have more people, so the responsibility of going on soft rather than on medium which would have been a better call stands with the team,” he asserted.
“It’s 100 percent my responsibility on the pit wall.
“The driver kind of gives his point of view, that is a point of view, and in that case it should have been the people to make a call saying we go medium because the soft may not make it to the end.”
Despite missing out on victory, McLaren left Silverstone with a healthy haul of 27 points, two more than Mercedes and nine more than Red Bull Racing.
It remains third in the constructors’ championship, now just seven points back from Ferrari in second and 78 from Red Bull Racing at the top of the standings.
