The Las Vegas Grand Prix, the 22nd round of the 2025 F1 season, presented McLaren with several questions. The team is known to fear graining more than others, a factor that needed careful consideration. Then came Norris’s starting error: overly focused on Verstappen, he forgot to brake. The race began uphill and ended with the double McLaren disqualification. Let’s analyze how the team managed the race.
Strategy dictated by graining
On Friday, no full race-pace simulations were carried out, complicating Woking’s efforts to refine the setup and reduce graining risk. It’s worth noting that all teams prioritized qualifying simulations, as starting at the front was crucial. The strategy itself was unclear: one stop or two? In the end, both could work, producing similar results. Drivers more affected by graining could benefit from two stops, while those able to manage it well, like Kimi Antonelli, could make a single stop work, as his excellent result confirmed.
In the early stages, the reigning world champions noticed that George Russell’s Mercedes had a slight advantage over both them and Max Verstappen’s Red Bull. With the W16 opting for an early stop, there was a real chance for the two MCL39 cars to adopt a two-stop strategy. Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri suffered more from graining, making it logical to reduce stint distance. However, stopping too early was considered unproductive, so they initially mirrored Red Bull’s approach, later trying a later stop to gain tyre advantage in the next stint—a move that partly worked.
Second stint without the expected advantage
Before Verstappen’s pit stop, Red Bull noticed that Lando was using his medium tyres more than both them and George Russell, indirectly increasing the on-track gap. Oscar Piastri was the first of the McLarens to stop. After a difficult start and being overtaken by Charles Leclerc, he pitted on lap 22 for hard tyres. The harder compound gave much more consistency, avoiding the previous stint’s graining issues. This allowed Piastri to overtake Leclerc thanks to the early stop, as the Ferrari stayed out four laps longer and lost valuable “race time.”
On lap 23, Norris also pitted for hard tyres, while Max Verstappen stopped on lap 26. The McLarens therefore could not fully exploit a tyre advantage for the final stint. With the hard tyres, the MCL39 had better pace and could push without triggering graining. The two papaya cars lit up on track while Russell fell back. Early stops didn’t work well for him, complicating hard-tyre management until the finish. Norris pushed harder, reclaiming position on Russell. The takeaway? Russell had a medium-tyre advantage that he couldn’t transfer to the second stint.
Norris’s recovery never threatened Verstappen
Even after passing George Russell, Lando Norris aimed for Max Verstappen. The team calculated where he could push to recover time, focusing on weaker sections like Turn 12. At Turn 10, no strategy would have changed the outcome. In the closing laps, after trying, Lando Norris gave up the chase for his rival, also to avoid running out of fuel. Lando never got closer than five seconds, once again showing McLaren the meaning of “execution” during a race weekend, while Red Bull perfectly managed pace and tyre strategy.
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