McLaren boss Andrea Stella believes his team must urgently improve its pitstop hardware after another setback in the Azerbaijan Grand Prix. Lando Norris finished seventh but lost time due to a slow wheel gun issue.
While Norris collected valuable points, his teammate Oscar Piastri crashed out on the first lap. The Briton’s charge through the midfield ended when a 4.1-second pitstop on lap 38 left him behind Charles Leclerc and Liam Lawson. He only managed to overtake the Ferrari driver in the final stages.
“In terms of pitstops, that’s an area in which we have already concentrated our efforts,” said Stella. “But as a matter of fact, we need to keep working because there’s some important performance that is available through pitstops and we have seen that the racing, if anything, is getting tighter and tighter.”
“So what is the impact of a pitstop now gets more and more important. So definitely, for the remainder of the season and also thinking about next year’s car, there’s work to do from a pitstop point of view for what is the execution of the pitstop, but also the hardware, such that executing a pitstop for our crew is just more straightforward and more natural.”
“There’s still some interactions between the operator and the hardware that should be improved from an hardware point of view.”
Back-to-Back Pitstop Problems for Norris
This was the second consecutive race where Lando Norris faced pitstop issues. At Monza, he was left waiting 5.9 seconds due to a front-left gun fault. Stella admitted these repeated delays come from the equipment rather than human mistakes.
“We know that from a hardware point of view, we are not optimising,” he added. “This is not because we didn’t want, this is because you kind of learn on the way.”
“We know that there’s room for improvement in terms of the equipment, in terms of the hardware on the equipment and the car side, so that we can make the life a little bit easier for our pitcrew.”
Stella Praises Norris Despite Pitstop Setback
Even with the slow stop, Stella praised Norris’ performance in Baku, insisting the Briton delivered everything possible from his car.
“I think Lando today had a strong race,” said Stella. “He raced to the limit of the potential that was available in the car. No other driver in Lando’s car could have scored more. If anything, the responsibility to try and extract more performance today or more points may lay more on the team’s side because with a fast, or the fastest pitstop, we could have given Lando the opportunity perhaps to attack Liam Lawson.”
“But from a driving point of view, we are completely happy that Lando has delivered to the limit of what was available today in the car.”
With seven races remaining, Piastri leads Norris by 25 points, while McLaren edges closer to sealing the constructors’ championship.
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