Lando Norris qualified his McLaren car third for the Japanese Grand Prix and was the best of the rest behind the Red Bull driver pairing. Yet his race left a lot to be desired including questions over the McLaren pit wall strategy they chose for him.

McLaren were committed to a two stop race, while Ferrari were attempting something different for Charles Leclerc given his poor starting position. This meant Lando Norris pitted before Leclerc on lap 12 and was set the task of overtaking him, though the Ferrari man would be on much older rubber.

 

 

 

McLaren target wrong driver

Lando came through the field but was thwarted as he arrived on the back of the Monegasques Ferrari driver. He toiled away for lap after lap unable to make the pass, so his team decided to call him in for fresh tyres on lap 26. The problem was Leclerc just a second ahead of the McLaren on track, also pitted on the same lap, leaving Norris once again trapped behind the Ferrari but now both drivers had the same amount of tyre wear.

With Leclerc then set to run to the finish, Norris struggled once again to overtake the Ferrari man and crossed the finish line with a gap to Leclerc of 3 seconds at the chequered flag.

When the team had instructed Norris to “box, box” the second time, he questioned whether in fact he was stopping too early. As it turned out Leclerc boxed ahead of him anyway and the moment to overtake the Ferrari was gone.

Teams often tell their drivers who are stuck behind another but in a pit stop window, to do the opposite (ie pit or don’t pit) to the driver ahead. McLaren did not issue this instruction to Lando who eventually trailed home some 10 seconds adrift of Carlos Sainz in third place on the same tree strategy.

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Macca boss denies team cost Norris

Norris’ problem was he had ten extra laps to deliver on the final set of tyres compared to Carlos Sainz who started behind there McLaren driver but finished third.

McLaren team boss attempted to deflect any criticism of his strategists preferring to believe Ferrari on the day just had better race pace.

“There were no issues. The final classification is on the pace competitiveness order,” he explained to assembled media. “We tried to go for the podium by stopping early, making sure we could hold position ahead of Carlos, and attacking Perez.

“Ultimately there wasn’t enough pace in the car. That’s fair enough. It’s a reflection of our competitiveness at this stage of the season. Good work by Charles and Ferrari making a one-stop possible.

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“It wasn’t possible for us,” insisted Stella. “And anyhow, it wasn’t the fastest strategy. Good for Ferrari to keep the tyres for so long. But it wasn’t about one-stop or two. It was about genuine car pace.”

Whilst Stella is supported by most of the F1 strategists who believed the two stop race was quicker, the unbalanced nature of the runs Lando Norris was asked to do, did not extract the maximum from each set of tyres, which is responsible for some of the time the British driver lost to his Ferrari rivals.

“It was a tough race,” Norris admitted to Sky F1. “I think compared to those guys who had better pace, compared to the Ferraris, just not enough.

“I think everything kind of fell back in-line in terms of Red Bull, Ferrari, us, which is a shame. It doesn’t feel great when you start third and just kind of go backwards and kind of feel like you’re just fighting a bit of a losing battle against these guys because they can just do a lot more. They can go longer and extend to have a much bigger tyre delta.”

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Norris race was compromised

Even more important that McLaren stick to their own optimum race strategy rather than bee forced off track by others around them. It was explained over team radio to Norris, his second stop some 10 laps before Sainz was to cover off the Mercedes of George Russell.

Yet Mercedes were never a threat to McLaren, as the former world champions attempted a one stop race which they were forced to abandon. George Russell who led the silver arrows cars home finished over 20 seconds off the time set by McLaren’s Lando Norris.

Had Norris followed a similar tyre strategy to Sainz, in all probability he would have finished at least one spot better and ahead of Leclerc.

Lando conceded Ferrari and Leclerc delivered well by plotting a path for their man to climb from eight to fourth during the race, while attempting a strategy slower than his team mate. Yet he also criticised his own team for the timing of his own pit stops in Japan.

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Lando believes at least P4 possible

“Charles did a good job to go that far on one set of tyres and then I’m kind of surprised we boxed as early as we did to be honest with you. Because that just put it in line with what Ferrari did, and we covered George [Russell] which I just didn’t think we maybe needed to do.

“This is something we’ll discuss during the briefing. Maybe a discussion of we could have done a better job for P4. It’s always difficult to make those decisions at the time, we didn’t even know that he was going to pit.”

Ferrari under Fred Vasseur have an air of calm about their trackside operations these days, a stark contrast from two years ago when hardly a week went by without a glaring strategy blunder coming from the Scuderia pit wall.

McLaren did try to cover off the wrong driver in Suzuka, and certainly lost a point or two in the process. The team need to regain their composure for China which will be frenetic with just one practice session ahead of Sprint qualifying on Friday afternoon.

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F1 analyst agrees with Norris

Ex-Aston Martin strategist and now Sky F1 pundit, Bernie Collins, agrees McLaren did cost Norris time with his unbalanced pit stops. 

“[Andrea] Stella said two stops didn’t make a difference. I think that’s correct. But what did make the difference was Lando stopped four laps earlier than Sainz on the first stop, then 10 laps earlier on the second stop,” she said.

“In a race where we’re talking about significant deg, to do 10 extra laps on the final set is a big disadvantage in terms of total race time. It would have lost significant race time.

“A lot of the 10 seconds would have been lost through suboptimal pit stops. They will have to look at the race that Ferrari did – when they chose to do pit stops, not covering Russell, then trying to overtake later. It was significant in terms of overall race time.”

 

 

 

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