Several Formula 1 team principals were "very surprised" to see McLaren make the costly decision not to pit under a lap seven safety car at the Qatar Grand Prix, which cost Oscar Piastri a certain victory and Lando Norris a podium.
Piastri and Norris were running first and third in the superior McLaren, split at the start by Max Verstappen, when the safety car came out on lap seven for a collision between Nico Hulkenberg and Pierre Gasly.
As it happened, the end of lap seven was the start of the race's first pit window, as teams were only allowed to run 25 laps on a single set of tyres, due to concerns over potential punctures at the Losail circuit.
With the race running to 57 laps, it meant teams could come in as early as lap seven and then make it to the end with one more stop on lap 32. Virtually the entire field ducked into the pits to benefit from a cheap safety car stop, with the two McLarens the notable exceptions.
It proved a costly mistake as Verstappen took the restart in third behind them, losing just one position, and McLaren didn't have enough of a pace advantage to make up for the time loss of a green flag pitstop on the track, with Verstappen running out a comfortable winner.
"Yes, we were surprised," said Red Bull team boss Laurent Mekies. "It's always easy to say after the race what is the right strategy. But we were very surprised because on our side we had sort of pre-decided that it would be the first lap we could take [a pitstop] and we would take it. But I cannot judge what was their thought process at that moment."
Aston Martin's Mike Krack agreed: "Yes, very surprised. Because you do all that prep work and there are these edge cases in terms of safety car, in terms of race distance and maximum laps. And the fact that everybody came in except two cars shows you that it was probably a mistake.
"It was a point we discussed at length this morning, the safety car in lap seven. Because it is a brave call, you give up all your margin because you have 25 laps to go with two sets of tyres. But I was expecting everybody to come in and I was surprised that they didn't."
The prospect of a lap seven safety car was also a hot topic before the race at Ferrari, given Pirelli's maximum of 25 laps per tyre set - a number that appeared easily achievable given the low tyre degradation.
"We said before the race that the worst-case scenario is a safety car [on] lap seven, because then you have 50 laps to do," Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur explained. "It means that everybody will pit with the safety car and then on lap 32.
"In this case, except the McLaren was not on the same strategy, nobody overtook one car, I think. Honestly, I didn't understand because for me it was quite obvious to pit lap seven if there was a safety car. Now, perhaps they were just scared to block each other with the traffic into the pitlane and to give an advantage to one of the two cars. But honestly, I don't want to comment."
The idea of staying out on lap seven was at least discussed by another team. Williams considered leaving Alex Albon out. Not because it felt it was the right call, but as a way to do something different because Albon was outside the points anyway and was unlikely to move up given how hard overtaking was. But even in Albon's situation, the team quickly decided to stick to its guns.
"It was pretty nailed down," James Vowles told F1 TV. "We went through it all this morning and nothing actually deviated from that point. There was actually a debate that we had live about Alex, not Carlos. Carlos was nailed on stopping.
"With Alex there was a debate of do we try something different because where he is at the moment was out of the points. But the conclusion was it's 16 seconds faster, we've got to do this at this point in time and it transpired to be very much the correct decision."
Explaining the pit decision, McLaren team boss Andrea Stella said the team wasn't expecting the entire field to come in, and was therefore assuming its drivers would lose a lot more track position by coming in, which would have seen Piastri and Norris stuck in traffic.
With Piastri second and Norris fourth despite having the quickest car in Doha, McLaren has given Verstappen a lifeline in the championship, the Dutchman heading to this weekend's season finale in Abu Dhabi with a 12-point deficit on leader Norris. Piastri is also mathematically in contention trailing Norris by 16 points, the first time since 2010 three divers can still win the championship at the final race.
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