Sporting disaster for McLaren in Canada: the Woking squad completely gets the strategy wrong, and finishes with another double zero
Things absolutely couldn’t have gone worse. After a stellar Friday and Saturday, following excellent qualifying and a good Sprint Race, McLaren incredibly leaves Montréal with a resounding double zero.
An incredibly negative result for Andrea Stella and his men, marred by the (incomprehensible) choice to fit intermediate tires at the start, and more.
The intermediate error and reliability issues
The Canadian GP for McLaren, therefore, was certainly a waltz of errors: first and foremost the pit wall, with the choice to fit the intermediates at the start. In part, Lando Norris’s slingshot start and the double overtake at the launch at the expense of the two Mercedes of Russell and Antonelli had even “deluded” the Woking fans, seemingly justifying the choice made a few moments earlier.
The limits of the intermediate compound, however, logically emerged in the very next laps: Piastri in the pits as early as lap 3, Norris on the following one. The rain (which the McLaren garage took for granted), however, never really arrived, inevitably condemning the race of Lando and Oscar, forced into a massive comeback starting from the midfield.
And if things seemed to look promising, at least in an attempt to limit the damage, then came the reliability problems, the umpteenth of this 2026. Once again, Lando Norris’s number 1 Papaya was forced to stop on track, following a (vain) attempt by the team to work on the car’s radiator.
Besides the injury for Lando, the insult for Piastri: the Australian, displeased since the formation lap about the team’s choice to fit intermediates, as well as perpetually polemical with the team yesterday, found himself contesting a GP constantly at the back, ending up overdoing it in his comeback.
The result is poor: a final eleventh place, conditioned by a ten-second penalty due to the terrible maneuver carried out at the hairpin at the expense of Alexander Albon’s Williams, which retired following the impact.
The icing on the cake of a GP to forget, concluding with a double zero as heavy as a boulder in the Constructors’ standings. As well as a great shame for how the Montréal weekend had begun, which, without the compound mess and the continuous reliability problems, feels very much like a wasted opportunity.
Photos: mclaren.com
