McLaren clears the air behind its controversial strategy for Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri at the F1 Japanese GP

McLaren boss Andrea Stella felt that the strategy used by the team for Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri was the optimal one, and anything different would have potentially led to a loss of positions. The 2025 F1 Japanese GP went the way of Max Verstappen, as the Red Bull driver's pole position on Saturday sealed the fate of what was going to happen in the race.

Going into the weekend, it was clear that McLaren had the edge on pace over Red Bull and other competitors. With that being said, the British team had a car that tends to be hard to drive and prone to causing errors. This was evident during the qualifying session as both drivers had a few suboptimal laps in Q1 and Q2.

While both Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri put together decent laps in Q3, Max Verstappen nailed the perfect one and secured pole position.

During the race, Verstappen, Norris, and Piastri ran in formation in the first stint, many expected McLaren to split strategies between the two drivers by keeping one driver out for a longer stint and the other to aggressively undercut Verstappen.

However, McLaren did neither as the team was arguably on the defensive instead, reacting to George Russell's stop. Talking to Motorsport, Andrea Stella said that the strategy for the drivers was the best that was on the table.

"It's unclear whether we could [do the undercut] but I think pitting Lando [first], it would have meant that we could not pit Oscar, and this would have been a problem for Oscar."

He added,

"We would have waited, which I think would have been a problem with other cars, especially Russell, that pitted and that we needed to cover. We will review obviously the gaps in terms of time to understand whether there was a possibility to go for an undercut with Lando that could actually be executed on Max."

In the race as well, it was quite evident that McLaren had some pace in reserve, but unfortunately, that pace could only be put to use if the car ran in free air.

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McLaren boss reveals why Lando Norris was pitted on the same lap as Max Verstappen

What was even more surprising to see was that McLaren stopped Lando Norris on the same lap as Max Verstappen, which meant that the Brit driver didn't have clean air for even a single lap.

The team didn't bring Norris to the pits even a lap earlier or later to maybe give him an opportunity. Explaining why the team made such a call, Stella said,

"We don't have to forget though that, by giving up track positions, you also expose the car that you pit to safety car risk, for instance. Lando would have lost positions in a safety car should one be deployed. In hindsight, if you don't see any safety cars, you think 'oh yeah I might have gone for the undercut', but an undercut attempt comes with some risks."

McLaren continues to lead both championships at this point, but it will be interesting to see how they tackle what has the potential to be a major issue as the season progresses.