McLaren questions Lewis Hamilton's underperformance in Monaco GP as Max Verstappen's late race stint causes Lando Norris headache

McLaren boss Andrea Stella has questioned Lewis Hamilton's underperformance at Monaco, as the Ferrari driver was unable to take advantage of Max Verstappen's extended late-race stint. The Monaco GP featured a new mandatory two-stopper, which meant that there was some strategic variable to play with, something that has been missing from the race in the last few editions.

As part of that strategy, Max Verstappen opted to run his second stint deep into the race, hoping to benefit from a safety car. As a consequence, the Red Bull driver was quite rapidly caught by Lando Norris and Charles Leclerc, and by the end of the race, even Oscar Piastri was on the tail of the top two drivers.

This led to a lot of tension for the Lando Norris and McLaren camp, as Charles Leclerc was desperate to win his home race and was hustling the British driver through every corner. During all of this, Norris was just stuck as his pace was limited by Max Verstappen ahead of him, whose tires were completely destroyed, and he was lapping seconds slower than the drivers behind him.

The reason why the Dutch driver was able to pull off this strategy was because Lewis Hamilton, who was in P5 and had fresh tires on his Ferrari, was just too far behind and somehow not making up the gap that the other three drivers had (Norris, Leclerc, and Piastri).

If Lewis Hamilton was lapping at the same pace as the likes of Lando Norris, Charles Leclerc, and Oscar Piastri, he would have eaten into the gap that was there between him and the top four. This would have forced Red Bull into pitting Max Verstappen earlier and making the McLaren driver's life easier at the front.

Talking to the media, including Sportskeeda, after the race, McLaren boss Andrea Stella also questioned Lewis Hamilton's lack of pace in the last stint, as he said,

"I have to say I'm not sure Lewis had any problems, but he should have been involved. Lewis should have benefited from this approach from Red Bull. I still have to look at the data to see what everyone did (tactically ed.), but I don't think it makes sense to use Verstappen's approach if you were in P1, P2 or P3."

He added,

"For us, with that strategy, you would always be one pit stop behind, so I'm not sure if it would have worked for us at any point. I'll have to look back and see if it was interesting for us. We did think they might try something like that, but that strategy always put you in the current position."

Lewis Hamilton reflects on the Monaco GP

Lewis Hamilton was more or less content with the F1 Monaco GP where the driver started the race in P7 and finished in P5. Talking about the lack of pace that he suffered from in the race, the driver felt that it was primarily down to traffic which hurt him and hence explained the big gap to the top four drivers. He said (via F1's official website):

"I knew starting in P7 was going to be a challenge today, but it's good to see our progress overall. Once I found some clear air, I was able to make up a bit of ground, although we lost quite a bit of time in traffic and the balance wasn't quite where we wanted it."

Lewis Hamilton has had a topsy turvy ride at Ferrari in the first eight races where he has won a sprint and secured a sprint podium in the second one. The driver has however been working from a deficit against teammate Charles Leclerc since the start of the season and it would be interesting to see if he can close the gap to the top in the next few races.