Tom Clarkson

Do you understand now the reasons why?

Yeah, I mean, ultimately a combination of quite a few things.

You know, obviously the race before that was Monza, which, you know, I didn't feel was a particularly great weekend from my own performance.

And, you know, there was obviously what happened with the...

pit stops but then also in back of itself Friday was was tough things weren't working I was over driving I wasn't very happy with how I was driving and ultimately probably trying to make up for that a little bit on on Saturday there was just a lot of little things that

eventually kind of added up and you know ultimately I felt like on Saturday my pace was very good but I was just trying a bit too hard ultimately and I think that led to the crash in qualifying and then the race again kind of ultimately a combination of a few things you know starting a bit further back

Maybe wanting to make up a bit from the day before.

Reacting to something in the shift lights for the jump start.

Trying to pinpoint which one of those is the cause and which one of those is the effect.

We'll never know.

But I think ultimately Baku was the perfect storm of quite a few things, which obviously it was a pretty terrible weekend.

But I think the amount of learning we had from that weekend from...

A technical point of view, emotional point of view, you know, a team point of view, like so many areas.

Actually, I look back on it now and go, there's no beating around the bush.

That was the worst weekend I've ever had in racing, but probably the most useful in some ways.

So yeah, when you can start to look at things like that, I think normally that helps you out quite a lot.

McLaren's approach to the 2025 driver's title fight was clear.

Lando and Oscar were allowed to race each other, but fairness was paramount, and the team always came first.

One thing that intrigued me is how much the drivers followed the papaya rules, the team's instructions.

Oscar allowing Lando back past him after Lando's slow pit stop at Monza really stands out.