Did McLaren pit blunder cost Norris two places in F1 Azerbaijan GP?

In finishing seventh, Lando Norris failed to capitalise on the crash which eliminated team-mate and world championship rival Oscar Piastri from the Azerbaijan Grand Prix. Of that there is no doubt.

But could he have finished two places higher, but for the wheel gun issue which delayed his pitstop?

Probably not, in fact.

The circumstances of qualifying – Piastri crashing in Q3, Norris going out early after the restart and not making the most of track evolution – had put both McLarens out of position on the grid. From seventh, Norris lost a place to Isack Hadjar on the opening lap as Piastri botched the start and then hit the wall, bringing out the safety car.

When the race resumed Norris seemed to react slowly to the other cars hitting the gas ahead, and lost another place to Charles Leclerc. Both then benefitted from Hadjar making a mistake to pass the Racing Bulls car.

But Norris then struggled to pass Leclerc, becoming part of a mini-DRS train behind the Red Bull of Yuki Tsunoda – and then didn’t make much ground on Tsunoda once Leclerc pitted out of the way at the end of lap 19.

The crucial moment appeared to come when Norris stopped for hard-compound tyres at the end of lap 37, and the front-right wheel gun skipped over the face of the retaining nut rather than gaining purchase on it. Norris was held for four seconds rather than the usual two, and returned to the track just behind Liam Lawson and Leclerc.

An obvious conclusion to draw was that the two extra seconds consumed by the stop prevented Norris from leaving the pits ahead of this duo. This was certainly how the commentariat responded: Norris scuppered for a second race in a row by a slow pitstop.

Tsunoda pitted a lap later and emerged into the gap between Lawson and Leclerc, narrowly ahead of the Ferrari. While Norris eventually passed Leclerc, he was then stuck behind Lawson and Tsunoda for the remainder of the race and was classified seventh. But is it really possible to claim the stop effectively cost Norris two places?

McLaren team boss Andrea Stella seemed to change his mind halfway through the afternoon.

“The pitstop itself didn’t make any difference because we would have ended up pretty much in the area of Leclerc,” he told Sky TV immediately after the race.

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

By the time of his usual Sunday evening print media briefing he appeared to have adjusted his position on the stop slightly: “We still have to check whether, even with a faster pitstop, we could have been ahead or not of the Ferrari.”

Andrea Stella, McLaren

Photo by: Bryn Lennon / Formula 1 / Getty Images

A closer examination of the laps around the stops suggests not. Norris was 1.9s behind Tsunoda before he pulled over towards the pitlane entry. When he left the pits he was 1.8s behind Leclerc.

So, even without the additional two seconds or so lost to the pit delay, Norris would likely have emerged alongside the Ferrari, perhaps even with his nose ahead. But this would have made for a dicey time on cold tyres over the following few corners – and he would certainly not have come out ahead of Lawson. 

So the problem for Norris was not the stop but, as Stella pointed out, the car not being quick enough, likely because its performance characteristics do not suit this track. 

“There was simply not enough pace advantage in the car today to overtake cars that were at a similar pace,” Stella concluded. “I wouldn’t put it up to tyre choice or preference or sequence. I think the car was simply not fast enough.”

Nevertheless, a second consecutive bout of ‘finger trouble’ or hardware issues in the pits has to be worrying. In Monza, McLaren had enough of a pace advantage to resolve the consequences of the pitstop problem in an amicable way between the drivers, albeit at a cost of stirring up the wrath of the fan community. In Baku it was just an inconvenience. Elsewhere it may be more critical to a race outcome.

“Definitely, 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.

Lando Norris, McLaren

Photo by: Mark Thompson – Getty Images

“So the impact of a pitstop now gets more and more important. So definitely, for the reminder 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 a hardware point of view.”