Photo: RacePictures.

McLaren in a hurry to fix Achilles heel: 'It's getting tighter'

16:54, 26 Sep

byNorberto Mujica

McLaren team principal Andrea Stella has admitted that recent pit stop issues remain a concern as the championship closes in.

Lando Norris has suffered two slow stops in as many race weekends. Photo by RacePictures.

It’s an area in which we have already concentrated our efforts, but we need to keep working. Every tenth counts for the championship

- Andrea Stella

Lando Norris is now 25 points behind team-mate and championship leader Oscar Piastri after a difficult Azerbaijan Grand Prix, where neither driver had a smooth weekend. Piastri crashed out on the opening lap, while Norris, starting seventh, was unable to improve his position.

The spotlight fell on Norris once again after a slow 4.1-second stop in Baku, following a similar problem in Monza where a front-left wheel issue cost him nearly six seconds.

Despite the recurring delays, Stella told Sky Sports the pit stop itself didn’t change the outcome. “The pit stop itself didn’t make any difference because we would have ended up pretty much in the area of Leclerc,” he said.

“For me, the most important takeaway was that the car wasn’t fast enough. With a fast enough car, I think we would have been able to overtake and then have some free air and in free air actually use the full potential.”

Stella added that McLaren are still analysing the impact of pit stops and are committed to improving. “We have seen that the racing, if anything, is getting tighter and tighter, so the impact of a pit stop now gets more and more important,” he said.

“It’s an area in which we have already concentrated our efforts, but we need to keep working. Every tenth counts for the championship.”

Verstappen’s threat in the Drivers’ Championship grows ever larger

Stella is also wary of Verstappen’s potential reach in the Drivers’ Championship given Red Bull Racing’s recent turn of form, a condition the Italian attributes to the Austrian team’s recent floor upgrade in Monza.

According to Sky Sports F1 presenter Simon Lazenby, Red Bull’s Team Principal and CEO Laurent Mekies, thinks exactly the same as his McLaren counterpart.

However, after the race the Frenchman was quick to assure his team was not busy looking at Championship Standings, but were instead focused on extracting more lap time out of the car.

As the F1 circus heads to Singapore next, Mercedes Team Principal and CEO believes Red Bull are now in the mix as well, given the recent 68 points tally ‘point machine’ Max Verstappen has been able to reap for the Austrians.

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