The Athletic

The Races

The Races on

and Max Verstappen closed to within 12 points of championship leader Lando Norris

with victory in the Qatar Grand Prix,

setting up a three-way shootout for the title in Abu Dhabi. But why did McLaren make such a disastrous strategy call, and how big a blow is it for Oscar Piastri, who should have won the race? I'm Ed's draw and join me to dissect another title battle turning point as Scott Mitchell Malm and Mark Hughes. Well, Scott, we'll come to you first.

This was a race that Max Verstappan won and McLaren lost because Leader Osterpastri and

Landon Norris were left out under the safety car when 17 other cars pitted.

It comes no surprise to you to hear that the big question everyone wants answered and we've

had loads of questions from the race members club to this effect

is how they got it so badly wrong.

The priorities were in the wrong place.

They strongly believed that several other cars would not pit and therefore if they did dive into

the pit lane with one or both, one or both cars and it would most

likely be both given obviously the obsession with fairness that they would then not only forfeit

track position but they would be stuck in traffic and you would only need to be caught behind

one or two

cars with a similar enough pace profile that you'd then have your race inherently

compromised. Obviously being the leaders on track, you run the risk that Max Verstappen

and Red Bull do the opposite just to just to do something something different um but yeah it was an obsession of uh not wanting to

not wanting to run into trouble with um with traffic because uh fundamentally they colossally

misjudged what everybody would do. The fact that everyone else,

...