McLaren told it 'made its own luck' in wretched Canadian GP

McLaren has been reminded that "there are days you make your own luck" after its strategy blunder at the start of the Canadian Grand Prix catalysed a disastrous afternoon for the reigning F1 constructors' champions.

Bernie Collins highlighted how erronously starting Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri on intermediate tyres at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve set off a butterfly effect that ruined the team's race.

The former retired from the 68-lap race in Montreal due to a gearbox failure, whilst the latter finished P11 after earning a 10-second time penalty for taking Alex Albon out at the hairpin, which proved treacherous throughout.

Prior to the grand prix getting underway, McLaren — with its two drivers occupying the second row of the grid — was joined by Audi, Cadillac and Carlos Sainz in rolling the dice on difficult, changing track conditions by starting on the green-walled Pirellis.

Although it gave an initial advantage, with Norris taking the lead into the first corner, both promptly came in for a more appropriate set of dry tyres. That put them back into the midfield, and the team's hopes disintegrated from there.

"I think the hairpin was tricky; we've seen a lot of drivers make mistakes there, even on their own, not like this. Alex Albon, obviously, [was] just a victim of that," Collins said on Sky Sports F1 about the Australian's clash with the Williams on lap 13, which necessitated a second pit stop for a front wing change.

"There are days you make your own luck, and everything that went wrong in McLaren's day sort of escalated from the decision to start in intermediates.

"That put them out of position. Oscar Piastri should never have been racing Alex Albon at that point of the race [when they collided]."

Norris pulled off to retire on lap 40, but had been called into the pits earlier for his own second stop to alleviate an unrelated reliability problem, when his MCL40 started to overheat.

Collins highlighted how running in the pack can add further stress and strain onto an F1 car, as was partially the case with Norris, it transpired.

"Obviously, the reliability issues that happened for Lando could have happened anyway, but a lot of that reason in the midfield, even the reliability issues where they have to take debris out of the car, that is more of a risk in the midfield, because that is where you pick up those bits of debris in those instances," Collins added.