Andrea Stella believes McLaren were ‘greedy’ at Silverstone as he reflects on mistakes that cost chance of victory

The Italian also recognised that the soft compound may not have been the best choice, adding: “Pitting one lap later gives you the possibility to observe what your competitors do, and I think that going on softs wasn’t the right call for us.

“In fact, with the graining of the tyres [it was] too much to be able to retain the position on Verstappen and Lewis. In fairness, Lewis did a really good job of making the soft tyres last the entire stint.”

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In terms of why the medium tyre was not used, Stella said that the team wanted to check with Norris on what his preference was, with the concern being that the compound could be challenging to manage on the drying track.

“As a matter of fact, it wasn’t that tricky. Verstappen on a hard compound managed the transition onto the dry tyres without big issues,” the team boss continued.

“I think this one was a decision that we should have taken, like in stopping Oscar in the double stack, we should have taken the responsibility to say, ‘the medium is just the right tyre, we go for it’. I think in checking with Lando we kind of self-doubted, and this led us to following this direction which in hindsight wasn’t correct.”

However, Stella was keen to stress that the responsibility for such calls lies with the team and not solely with the driver.