It has everything to do with tyre allocation.avantman wrote: ↑25 May 2025, 19:53nothing to do with their tire allocation. they had pretty much guaranteed chance to OVERcut piastri on first occasion, unless they made a very bad pitstop, but decided to go for the win hoping for 1 out of 100 chance of safety car in the following few laps. Mclaren made a big mistake on a pitstop - worth 1.5s loss, what other presents do hyped up hannah schmitz need from their rivals? just gift them the win by retiring both cars? you are being gifted a golden opportunity at monaco - you take it and get a race position in order to close the gap in the wdc. do something....instead they just passively wait wait and wait...I frankly do not understand what happened to that team, If australia was already bad enough, this one was just horrible.
Iam not sure you've been following race strategy closely enough. Piastri stopped on lap 21, Max eventually stopped for medium on lap 29 and done the rest of the race on that same medium set. Stopping 7 or 6 laps earlier would not change anything for him and his tire situation, if anything it would only make things a lot easier, because Piastri would for sure have tried to undercut him later, forcing Max to respond and stop much earlier than lap 77 for soft. 30-35 laps on soft would be easily doable at low pace and we saw today how slow one could be and still stay ahead easily.Paa wrote: ↑25 May 2025, 21:13It has everything to do with tyre allocation.avantman wrote: ↑25 May 2025, 19:53nothing to do with their tire allocation. they had pretty much guaranteed chance to OVERcut piastri on first occasion, unless they made a very bad pitstop, but decided to go for the win hoping for 1 out of 100 chance of safety car in the following few laps. Mclaren made a big mistake on a pitstop - worth 1.5s loss, what other presents do hyped up hannah schmitz need from their rivals? just gift them the win by retiring both cars? you are being gifted a golden opportunity at monaco - you take it and get a race position in order to close the gap in the wdc. do something....instead they just passively wait wait and wait...I frankly do not understand what happened to that team, If australia was already bad enough, this one was just horrible.
They only had 1 hard tyre and 1 medium at the start of the race. Starting on the hards determined that they have to go long. It was never an option to change the tyre in sync with the others starting in medium (all others had 2 sets of hard at that point).
Their strategy made sure to keep their starting position at the very worst case, while giving them a ~20-25 lap window for red flags to win the race. I would say it was a guaranteed 4th with a ~10%-15% chance of winning.
What you are suggesting was to have a chance for 3rd place, but be extremely vulnerable for the rest of the race, risking to even get outside of the points.
Their strategy was capped from the bottom, 4th guarantee with a distant chance of winning. Your strategy would give them 3rd at best case with a chance of getting outside of the points.
I think it was the best given their tyre choices. But I also think it was a mistake not to keep one more hard or medium for the race, because having only 2 racing tyre for a 3 stint race really limited their options.
You are telling this with an advantage of hindsight, knowing how the race went. But at that point you did not know how the race would develop.avantman wrote: ↑25 May 2025, 21:36
Iam not sure you've been following race strategy closely enough. Piastri stopped on lap 21, Max eventually stopped for medium on lap 29 and done the rest of the race on that same medium set. Stopping 7 or 6 laps earlier would not change anything for him and his tire situation, if anything it would only make things a lot easier, because Piastri would for sure have tried to undercut him later, forcing Max to respond and stop much earlier than lap 77 for soft. 30-35 laps on soft would be easily doable at low pace and we saw today how slow one could be and still stay ahead easily.
I think they missed 1 trick which was staying close to Piastri before he stopped for the first time. PIA had a 3.8 second stop. That was an easy pass through the pits but VER was 3 seconds behind PIA when PIA pitted.Paa wrote: ↑25 May 2025, 21:57You are telling this with an advantage of hindsight, knowing how the race went. But at that point you did not know how the race would develop.avantman wrote: ↑25 May 2025, 21:36
Iam not sure you've been following race strategy closely enough. Piastri stopped on lap 21, Max eventually stopped for medium on lap 29 and done the rest of the race on that same medium set. Stopping 7 or 6 laps earlier would not change anything for him and his tire situation, if anything it would only make things a lot easier, because Piastri would for sure have tried to undercut him later, forcing Max to respond and stop much earlier than lap 77 for soft. 30-35 laps on soft would be easily doable at low pace and we saw today how slow one could be and still stay ahead easily.
The risk of having only used softs left for Max for his last stop is that he can't really have his last stop before lap53-60 or so. 20-25 laps on a used C6 is already a stretch.
So if Max changes his only hard to his only medium at lap21, then he can't react to any potential SC/red flag between lap 21-lap55. He is vulnerable at this stage, so he needed to limit the laps between his first stop and the potential window of his second stop (lap53+)
If there is an SC at let's say Lap 35 --> Verstappen's choice is to either do his last pit and then go for a 43lap stint on used C6. The other choice is to keep the lead on his semi-used medium, possibly creating a train behind him with the others on new hards. Then eventually fall back to the end of that train when he does his last pit at the end.
This is what I mean that not having an other potent racing tyre limited his options as he couldn't bring his last stop too early. This is why his only realistic option was to go long and wait for a miracle red-flag.
Realistically his lap 29 first pit was also too early, but as I remember he had to go, otherwise he would have been overcut by Hamilton soon.
I think they never really considered to stop that early anyway so it was not on their radar.
Whatever angle we look at it from, it circles back to Redbull wasting a race tyre in FP3.Paa wrote: ↑25 May 2025, 22:24I think they never really considered to stop that early anyway so it was not on their radar.
edit: In hindsight, knowing how the race went, they probably could have secured P3.
edit2: thinking about it, probably even if they overcut Piastri at the first stop, they couldn't have kept the position.
As Piastri could have gone for an early stop to undercut Max, let's say at lap 35 or so. While Max wouldn't have been able to react with only used softs left for him.
(Assuming they overcut Piastri due to bad pitstop) Max would have been ahead on the road and then Hamilton was still in the pit window of Piastri and could be held their indefinitely if Max just slowed down. That would have made it less attractive for Mclaren to pit him for the last stop to undercut. He would be stuck behind Hamilton who had no pace and Hamiton didn't have any reason to stop. He could afford to wait longer for a red flag.Paa wrote: ↑25 May 2025, 22:24I think they never really considered to stop that early anyway so it was not on their radar.
edit: In hindsight, knowing how the race went, they probably could have secured P3.
edit2: thinking about it, probably even if they overcut Piastri at the first stop, they couldn't have kept the position.
As Piastri could have gone for an early stop to undercut Max, let's say at lap 35 or so. While Max wouldn't have been able to react with only used softs left for him.
Yes, being only 1 race-win away from the leader at 1/3 season is really good damage control.
I think Red Bulls choice of tyres almost forced their hand there.FittingMechanics wrote: ↑25 May 2025, 19:55Honestly I think they maximized the chances they had. Gambling on a red flag was a good idea and could have given them a massive +20 points swing.avantman wrote: ↑25 May 2025, 17:47Another pathetic performance from the strategy group. Just pathetic. Got extremely lucky once in Brazil now they are they doing the same thing time after time again hoping to get lucky once again. Wasted opportunity in Australia, wasted opportunity to try at least undercut Piastri twice.
Undercutting Piastri was not really on cards, especially as they started on hards.
I can pretty much guarantee any of you, they were not afraid of putting on softs and making a long stint on it. Otherwise how on earth would they go into the race starting on hard, having only 1 medium and used soft left?Watto wrote: ↑26 May 2025, 00:59I think Red Bulls choice of tyres almost forced their hand there.FittingMechanics wrote: ↑25 May 2025, 19:55Honestly I think they maximized the chances they had. Gambling on a red flag was a good idea and could have given them a massive +20 points swing.avantman wrote: ↑25 May 2025, 17:47Another pathetic performance from the strategy group. Just pathetic. Got extremely lucky once in Brazil now they are they doing the same thing time after time again hoping to get lucky once again. Wasted opportunity in Australia, wasted opportunity to try at least undercut Piastri twice.
Undercutting Piastri was not really on cards, especially as they started on hards.
Knowing they would have to use the softs at some point and they really didn't like the soft.
Probably took the gamble you said too too the chance of making up an extra 20 odd points over 3 by overacting Oscar in what would have been a very tight pit stop and Red Bulls pit stops this year have been below their best..
I do not see what you mean here...sorry...Watto wrote: ↑26 May 2025, 00:59I think Red Bulls choice of tyres almost forced their hand there.FittingMechanics wrote: ↑25 May 2025, 19:55Honestly I think they maximized the chances they had. Gambling on a red flag was a good idea and could have given them a massive +20 points swing.avantman wrote: ↑25 May 2025, 17:47Another pathetic performance from the strategy group. Just pathetic. Got extremely lucky once in Brazil now they are they doing the same thing time after time again hoping to get lucky once again. Wasted opportunity in Australia, wasted opportunity to try at least undercut Piastri twice.
Undercutting Piastri was not really on cards, especially as they started on hards.
I was surprised that they even put it on and not just took the 30sec penalty.