E8404424 wrote: ↑19 Jul 2026, 19:16
billamend wrote: ↑19 Jul 2026, 18:24
Again, McLaren having awful strategy for Norris… The biases from the top trickle down.
Todays fiasco was all about not making sure that Oscar didn't lose out. Part of this rigid mandate they have about the lead driver being favoured for pitstops etc etc. The pit wall seem unable to see past their rigid plans and adapt to what is actually happening. Oscar's car damage was down to Oscar, a blind man in a snowstorm could see Charles was not going to back out yet Oscar just refused to back out. Lando was then racing Oscar when it was not needed, he was being held up, only for Lando to be told not to do the same with Oscar. Why are we leaving Lando out to Lap 30, losing a second or so a lap towards the end of that stint, instead of just pitting around 25 or 26 and giving him a chance ?? .. Look how close he was to Hadjar at the end. Couple of more laps and he would have had him.
I am in a minority here, to say the least, but I think the problem here is Stella. I think he is an excellent guy in the factory, a very good man manager, but a liability on the pit wall and at races. He also seems to have a very soft spot for Oscar. Lost of times it's all about him saying that we must be fair to Oscar, when Oscar is being beaten. When Oscar gifted Charles a win at Monza, because he was too busy fighting Lando, Stella states after the race that Oscar is the future. When Lando won the title last year Stella is going on about Oscar being a multiple Driver's Champion. When Lando won a sprint in Miami this year Stella states that whoever was on pole would have won that race. The fact is that Oscar has been beaten by Lando for the last three years, and he is being beaten, so far, this year. And Lando has had more DNF's than him. Max is being linked to the team for a reason.
I read you post twice, and I tend to agree with almost all of it
Andrea Stella just explained how important every lap of practice is with these 2026 power units, pointing out that Oscar missing around 20 minutes last weekend could have cost 1–2 tenths. since the software is constantly learning and optimizing from every run, every bit of running matters. Suddenly we're getting detailed explanations about self-learning PUs, how every lap is crucial, how it could be worth 1–2 tenths, and how his deficit had "nothing to do with the driver."
For context, Lando has had 8 of the 22 FP sessions this season heavily disrupted by reliability or technical issues, with most costing him 30–50 mins of track time.
It puts into perspective how much he’s had to find from his side to extract performance from the car, and how much more he could have unlocked with consistent running these PUs require.
Just as a reminder, Lando spends half the season losing huge part of practice time to reliability issues, electrical problems, deployment bugs, gearbox changes and other technical setbacks, and we're basically told to deal with it. No public breakdown of how much performance that might be costing him, no estimates of lost tenths, no reminders that these 2026 power units are constantly learning with every lap.
But seems Stella has short memory when it comes to protect Oscar (and imo Oscar doesn't need it, cause he is a great guy and a very good driver).
Stella should defend his drivers, but his consistency is at the same level with Lando's pit stop at Spa
. If missing 20 minutes is enough to publicly explain away Oscar's performance, then the same logic should've been applied when Lando was repeatedly losing far more running throughout the season.
