Zak Brown Knows McLaren Made 'Wrong Decision' in Qatar GP Strategy Call Following Early Safety Car

A blundered strategy call by the World Constructors' Champions in the Qatar Grand Prix Sunday night has set up a three-driver title fight at Abu Dhabi next weekend.

On a track like the Losail Circuit in Qatar, where the most significant opportunities for overtakes are bunched in the opening laps, and after safety cars, McLaren looked like they secured a double podium finish early. Oscar Piastri was leading from the pole, and Lando Norris was keeping pace in third after giving up second to Max Verstappen in the opening corner. Instead, the McLarens deviated from the field following a lap seven incident between Nico Hulkenberg and Pierre Gasly, when they pulled out under the safety car while every other driver pitted.

"We made the wrong decision," Brown admitted in an interview with F1TV. "I feel terrible for Oscar and Lando. Oscar was absolutely impeccable all weekend, so we let them down. You win and lose as a team. Not a great moment, our evaluation on if a safety car came out on that lap was clearly incorrect.

"We’ll go back and study that," Brown continued. "There’s nothing we can do about it now; we’re leading the championship. We’ll go back and study that. There’s nothing we can do about that now. We’re leading the tournament. We put Oscar at a deficit, left some points on the table. We’ll just do the best we can at Abu Dhabi; we were very strong there last year."

With Piastri in the lead, McLaren's decision for the driver has to be made without the hindsight of what other teams choose. For Norris in third, there was the chance to change course once the RB20 of Verstappen peeled into the pit lane.

"We didn’t want to change what we decided to do coming into the race," Brown explained why they didn't change course with Norris. "I think it’s kinda dangerous to second-guess yourself on what you thought coming in. We’ll have to evaluate it it clearly didn’t work out our way."

The outcome of this wrong decision is Piastri falling to third, and Norris now feeling increased pressure from Verstappen, a driver who has brought the championship to the final race before and won.

Brown claims that the decision not to pit if an early safety car was to come out was decided before the race and based on what the team thought was best for their pace and their drivers.

"It was less about what others were going to do; it was what we thought was right to do. Tires at the limit, the hard tires ended up being a lot quicker, and obviously, there wasn’t much running on those."

The hard tires didn't fall off as much as was expected, and few in the field gambled on softs once they saw how the mediums handled over the long run, knowing they could get pace and distance out of the safer bet.

McLaren spent the majority of the race on an alternative strategy to the field, and their pace saved each driver's hopes of a WDC from further damage. When the McLaren drivers cycled through for their first pit stops, they needed a 26-second buffer on traffic. Piastri was slated to come out in fourth ahead of Fernando Alonso, with Norris possibly being released into tighter traffic with a few less seconds of wiggle room. Instead, Norris' pitcrew gave him a 2.2-second stop, and the champion was back on the track ahead of the Aston Martin.

If the drivers reentered following their lap 24 and lap 25 pit stops further back, Verstappen could've done more damage with his win.

"I need to just give Oscar and Lando big hugs because they did their jobs," Brown said.

Piastri called an audible, asking to come in before they hit the maximum amount of laps on their second set of tires. When he was given the green to pit, he was told how fast he would have to be to make the strategy change work, and agreed. His early pace was below the 1:24.000 ceiling that his pitwall gave him, but in the end, Verstappen, in clean air, was still able to control the race, with Piastri not being able to close the 17-second gap in the final 16 laps after he pitted for hard tires.

Norris, who came out fifth following his second stop, had one clear opportunity to pass Kimi Antonelli and potentially go after Carlos Sainz for the final spot on the podium, but he missed his first chance. He was then gifted an opportunity on the final lap when Antonelli slowed following an ill-fated attempt to overtake Sainz in turn 10.

With his fourth-place finish, Norris stands 12 points ahead of Verstappen and 16 points ahead of Piastri. Next week, a podium finish will secure a championship for Norris, giving the driver zero wiggle room.

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