Juan Pablo Montoya thinks McLaren’s Qatar stumble might be the sharp jolt they needed before the title decider in Abu Dhabi.
The team walked out of Lusail nursing a self‑inflicted bruise. Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris started on the front row, Piastri lit it up off the line, and then a Lap 7 Safety Car scrambled the whole thing. Most of the field piled in. McLaren didn’t. Andrea Stella called it a “huge mistake” afterwards, and it was hard to argue: by staying out, both drivers effectively conceded a free stop to Max Verstappen and the Red Bull.
From there, it was damage control. Piastri had to make two green‑flag stops and couldn’t claw it all back, coming home second behind Verstappen. Norris lost out to Carlos Sainz and finished fourth. If this was supposed to be the race that loosened Verstappen’s grip on the title chase, it did the opposite. Instead, we head to Yas Marina with a three‑way knife fight: Norris leading the championship by 12 points over Verstappen, Piastri a further four back.
Montoya’s take? Painful, yes — but probably useful.
“I think actually having this rough of a weekend for McLaren, it’s a good thing,” he told F1 TV. “It’s a big wake-up call… we need to not be conservative, we need to execute.”
That word — execute — has hung over McLaren’s year. The car is fast enough to make life difficult for anyone, and most weekends it’s been the class of the field. But the clean, clinical weekends are rarer when the title pressure ratchets up. In Qatar, Verstappen didn’t need a second invitation; he beat Norris off the line for a second straight race, Piastri got trapped by strategy, and the papaya pit wall blinked at the very moment it needed to cover.
Montoya didn’t sugarcoat Norris’s weekend either. “Lando knows he had a rough weekend. From the first practice he struggled… he just was never comfortable here.” Nobody in Woking will panic over one circuit mismatch, but it’s a reminder that starts matter, and you don’t hand Verstappen track position for fun.
All of which sets up Abu Dhabi rather nicely. On paper, Yas Marina should lean towards McLaren again. The car’s low-speed traction and medium-speed balance have been weapons all season, and if the team’s qualifying form is intact, they’ll get first say on race pace and pit windows. Montoya predicts exactly that: “Going into Abu Dhabi, I think it’s going to be a very good track for McLaren again. And honestly, Max is going to give it the best, but the big question mark — if the Red Bull is better — when does McLaren go to Oscar and go: ‘Hey, we need to work here together’?”
That’s the tightrope now. McLaren’s season-long mantra has been fairness between drivers, and Piastri’s return to form has reinforced why: he’s been fast enough to win outright. But the arithmetic is becoming blunt. With Norris holding the points lead and Verstappen closer than he’d like, the team can’t afford another strategic shrug if it compromises the No. 4 car’s title shot. Whether it’s a start‑lap plan, undercut priority, or simply mirroring Red Bull at the first hint of Safety Car jeopardy, the calls need to be decisive.
Stella’s apology in Qatar felt pointed. This wasn’t a gray-area misread; it was a big moment mishandled. And there’s a wider lesson there: championship runs are defined less by the perfect weekends than by how you limit the bad ones. McLaren still leave Qatar with the lead — a slimmer, nervier one — but a lead all the same. It’s not just livable; it’s defendable.
So Abu Dhabi becomes a test of nerve as much as pace. Nail qualifying. Cover the Safety Car. Don’t give Verstappen clean air without a fight. And, if it comes to it, be honest about team orders early enough that both cars can still beat the Red Bull on the road.
Montoya’s right about the wake-up call. Lusail stripped away the comfort blanket. Now it’s just McLaren, their two drivers, and 58 laps under the Yas Marina lights to decide how this season gets remembered.
