Explained: How Max Verstappen blocked McLaren from George Russell-style move at Belgian Grand Prix

McLaren team principal Andrea Stella admitted Max Verstappen and his tyre management at Spa kept him in front of Lando Norris on Sunday.

Verstappen was running on medium tyres in the final part of the race, with George Russell being the driver to make a one-stop strategy work to cross the line first – prior to his disqualification for his Mercedes being underweight.

McLaren: ‘We thought overtaking Max Verstappen would have been easy’

Additional reporting by Thomas Maher

Norris had extended his stint in the second part of the Belgian Grand Prix in the hope of having fresher rubber towards the end of the race, Verstappen having moved onto mediums with the McLaren on the hard tyres with tyre degradation having appeared higher than expected early on.

But with Russell eventually able to pull off a one-stop strategy to cross the line first and Verstappen able to make his mediums last to the chequered flag, that left the likes of Norris missing out on potentially having climbed further up the order.

McLaren team boss Stella admitted they had expected the reigning World Champion’s tyres to fall away late on, allowing his driver by, but that did not take place – and they would need to take a look at whether a one-stopper would have been on for Norris.

When asked if Norris could have moved to a one-stop strategy in the same vein as Russell, Stella responded to media including PlanetF1.com: “Potentially, I need to review this one.

“I have to potentially need to understand if Lando was in the in the right position to do so because obviously having extended, you tend to lose some positions on track.

“For us, the plan with Lando was robust, it’s just that we were a little surprised that we could not overtake.

“The other one where we were surprised, and this could be also to do with how good Verstappen is as a driver, he made the medium last in the final stint like not many other drivers managed to do today.

More reaction from the Belgian Grand Prix weekend

👉 Belgian GP conclusions: Mercedes fireworks? Game over for Perez and Jos Verstappen factor

👉 F1 2024 power rankings: Lewis Hamilton on the move after Belgian GP triumph

“We were just expecting that his tyres would have fallen off, and they didn’t, so we thought overtaking Verstappen would have been easy and it proved not to be the case.

“So I’ll have to review whether with Lando it would have been a good idea to just follow what Russell was doing.

“When we extended Lando, we were definitely more optimistic that having extended five laps on some other cars, we could have taken advantage of this better pace.

“But in reality, because of the two factors I said, the low degradation and the difficulties in overtaking, we could not – and that started to be a bit of a symptom that maybe things are not exactly unfolding like we had anticipated.”

While Russell was later disqualified, the McLaren team principal said the Mercedes driver was in a place where taking a risk would have potentially paid dividends, having been running lower down in the race order.

As for McLaren, however, as they are looking to challenge Red Bull, with a further dent made in their Constructors’ Championship lead, they are being more pragmatic.

“I think in Russell’s position, there was potentially more motivation to take a risky approach, you know, like if it doesn’t work,” Stella said.

“For us, we want to think slightly more robustly – and we see today we scored again, higher than Red Bull, we’re now 42 points behind.

“I think we need to, we need to be a little cautious with adventurous strategies, which in hindsight, today actually proved to be good.”

Read next: Carlos Sainz contract details: Williams boss quizzed on reported Red Bull, Mercedes clause