McLaren mocked over calamitous decision: 'What on earth were they doing?'

McLaren's decision to start Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri on intermediate tyres at the Canadian Grand Prix has been roundly condemned by paddock insiders, with Karun Chandhok revealing that engineers and drivers from rival teams were left bewildered by the call.

The team opted for the green-walled Pirellis on a Circuit Gilles Villeneuve that was cold and lightly damp but far from wet enough to justify the compound.

It went wrong almost immediately: Piastri radioed during the extra formation lap to say it was a mistake, and both drivers were forced to pit for slicks within the opening laps, surrendering all track position gained in qualifying.

"To be honest, from the commentary box walking to here [the Sky Pad], I bumped into three drivers and four people, engineers from different teams, whose opening words were to me: 'What on earth were McLaren doing?', and you could replace 'earth' with a different type of word on every one of those," Chandhok said on Sky Sports F1.

"So certainly nobody else I've spoken to thought the intermediates were a good idea, not the top teams, anyway."

The constructors' champion was not alone in the decision, with the Audis, Cadillacs and Carlos Sainz all opting for the same roll of the dice.

Norris initially took advantage of the softer compound, striking off the line to overtake both Mercedes cars into the first corner, but Chandhok noted the gamble was always going to be exposed, adding: "But it was pretty clear straight away that it wasn't going to last."

Downhill from there

Norris switched to mediums at the end of Lap 2 and found himself mired in traffic, struggling with warm-up. He later required a further stop for the team to clean his radiators before a gearbox failure forced his retirement around mid-distance.

"And then he put on the medium tyres, struggled with the warm-up, went across the grass at Turn 4, tyres started to warm up a bit, and then he slowly picked his way through the pack," Chandhok explained.

"So, overall, it was a recovery drive; he would have probably ended up in a seventh or eighth position with all of the overtakes that he was doing, but at the end of the day, the damage was done early on. Horrible day for Lando Norris and McLaren."

Piastri's afternoon fared no better. Dumped into the midfield after his Lap-1 pit stop, the Australian collided with Alex Albon's Williams, earning a fully deserved 10-second time penalty.

He finished P11, pointless and two laps adrift of race winner Kimi Antonelli. Bernie Collins, meanwhile, argued on the same broadcast that McLaren made its own luck, noting that every problem the team encountered in Montreal stemmed from that one initial call on the grid.

"Oscar Piastri also dropped way back in the pack, and then had his incident down at the Turn 10 hairpin; just way, way too ambitious on the way in, way too fast, and was trying to pass Bearman, perhaps didn't realise really the speed difference he had with cars in front, completely misjudged it, and went into the side of Alex Albon," Chandhok said.

"Got the penalty for that, slam dunk, absolutely not much for the FIA to think about, so that's what I thought about it."