A high-degradation track, asphalt temperatures around 50°C, and a race that made tire management crucial. Everything seemed set for a McLaren one-two, and the only way to spoil the papaya party was an aggressive, daring move—like Red Bull’s three-stop plan, which few had anticipated before the race.
A strategy aimed at neutralizing one of McLaren’s biggest strengths: long-run tire management. That’s why Red Bull saw an all-out race with three stops as the only way to challenge McLaren, and at one point in the Grand Prix, it almost looked like it could work. Almost.
Red Bull quickly leaned into a more aggressive strategy, especially after Lando Norris showed he had the pace to overtake Verstappen on track—unlike last year, when his struggles in overtaking were a key factor in the four-time world champion’s win. At that point, it was clear Red Bull needed something different to unsettle McLaren.
“As the race developed, we opted for a three-stop strategy. We decided fairly early on because we saw that in a direct fight, we wouldn’t be able to counter McLaren’s advantage in pace and tire management,” said Christian Horner after the race.
In previous races, Max Verstappen often tried to match McLaren’s pace early on, only to fall behind due to the MCL39’s superior tire longevity. Red Bull built its strategy on that, pushing from the start—helped by the soft tire, which proved to be the best of the weekend in Barcelona.
Two philosophies clashed: outright speed versus tire management. Of course, the three-stop approach came with downsides: first, the extra 22 seconds to make up; second, traffic, which always forces drivers to push the tires harder than ideal.
Red Bull was sharp in handling this, particularly during the second stop when Max Verstappen switched to mediums. They carefully monitored Lewis Hamilton’s position to ensure Max rejoined ahead while still pushing and extending his stint. That’s when the race got interesting.
In the early stints, McLaren had monitored their rivals without feeling threatened. However, when Max Verstappen bolted on mediums and started closing in on a potential undercut window, the Woking pit wall had to seriously consider how to defend.
“When we saw Max was on a three-stop strategy, we thought it wouldn’t be a problem since we’d already passed him on track. And we should’ve had a good pace advantage. But the truth is, he was fast. When we switched to mediums, we were pushing while controlling the pace, but Max was catching up much quicker than expected,” explained Andrea Stella.
“At one point, we even told our drivers they needed to push more. And both of them replied something like, ‘I’m not sure I have much more pace than this.’ At that point, we were a bit worried the situation might be more open than we had anticipated in the first stint.”
“It could have also gotten tricky for us, because Oscar and Lando were about 2.5 seconds apart. So, if we needed to cover Max Verstappen, it could’ve been a bit of a problem with the two of them so close. But fortunately, Oscar found a lot of pace at the end of the second stint.”
Indeed, looking at Oscar Piastri’s second stint pace, a clear shift is noticeable once the team told him to push: from lap 24 to 42, he averaged 1:20.0 per lap, and in the final six or seven laps of the stint—despite already having 20 laps on those tires—his average pace improved by almost half a second.
A clear sign that McLaren still had something up its sleeve. It’s evident the MCL39 couldn’t maintain that pace over the entire stint, but when it truly mattered, Oscar Piastri showed there was still margin, expressing the car’s true potential to contain Verstappen’s charge.
But where did that change in pace come from? Already on Friday, there was talk of the MCL39 being a bit “weak” at the front, and it’s no surprise that for much of the second stint they tried not to overstress the front left, especially in Turn 3 and other fast corners.
When the race engineer said there was margin to push in Turn 3—a critical point for the front left—the MCL39’s potential was fully revealed, with Piastri quickly dropping his lap times by several tenths. A necessary pace change, also because the Australian had just cleared the lapped cars.
Oscar Piastri, also benefiting from the gap built in the first stint over Lando Norris, managed his tires excellently in the first part of the second half of the race, preserving the front left in particular. It’s no coincidence that Lando, who had pushed harder earlier on, didn’t show the same shift in pace, suffering more understeer in Turn 3—to the point of thinking he had graining, one of the few factors that still “slows” McLaren today.
While Oscar Piastri pulled away at the front, opening a gap, the fight behind between Verstappen and Norris stabilized. Red Bull played its final card by pitting early for a third stop in an attempt to undercut and regain position on track—even though it meant doing more laps on the same compound. McLaren immediately responded, covering with Norris.
Leave a Reply