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McLaren Team Principal Andrea Stella has defended McLaren’s decision to put Lando Norris on a different strategy during the Japanese Grand Prix but admitted the Briton’s early pitstop left them with limited options.
Lando Norris driving the McLaren MCL38 Mercedes on track during the F1 Grand Prix of Japan at Suzuka International Racing Course. (Photo by Bryn Lennon – Formula 1/Formula 1 via Getty Images)McLaren outplayed by Ferrari
After starting third, Norris was the first of the leading cars to pit. However, the early pitstop cost the Bristol-born driver, who lost out to both Ferraris, eventually crossing the line in fifth.
Norris and his team had gone for a two-stop strategy, a more aggressive strategy hoping to make the difference in the race pace between itself and the Ferrari. But the Ferrari pit wall decided to undercut McLaren and put Charles Leclerc on a one-stop, which meant as the Monegasque pitted, he was followed suit by a papaya orange McLaren of Norris, who had lost out due to his team’s strategy call.
Norris believed he could have continued longer before coming in for his final stop. However, the McLaren team boss backed his team’s decision not to bring him in.
As reported by Motorsport.com, Stella said:
“I think we were a little out of options because when we stopped Lando at the start, we kind of knew that Ferrari were ready to go to undercut us,” he said.
“So we wanted to play preventatively. We had two sets of hard, so we could stop early, and in stopping Lando early we wanted to see like, can we go for the podium? And we even tried to see can we go for it to beat Perez?
“I thought it was worthwhile trying that. Ultimately, this put us on a race which might have been slightly unpreferred from overall time [of the race] point of view, but I think it was very worthwhile trying. So on Lando’s side we are happy that we wanted to try finishing on the podium.”
No podium, but a positive result
Despite Norris not taking home his 15th podium, the weekend remained positive in terms of points scoring for the Woking-based team, having scored a combined 14 points, with the addition of Oscar Piastri’s eighth place.
Now, Stella has admitted that although he believes his team made the right call, they were “forced” to pit by Leclerc but also needed to avoid dropping behind the approaching Mercedes pairing of Russell and Hamilton.
“The timing of the second stop was forced by Leclerc,” Stella said.
“Also there was Carlos approaching Lando. So Carlos would have overtaken Lando and once Carlos overtakes Lando, Lando loses time, and then he ends up behind Hamilton and Russell.
“Because when you race so many cars, you have to consider multiple implications. It’s not like you’re racing only one car.
“I’m not sure how fun it is for spectators, but for us, it makes the race quite complex in terms of who you are actually fighting.”
The Spanish engineer stuck by his decision to let Norris attempt to chase down the podium but admitted that if they had “given up” on trying to finish on the podium, there would be a higher chance the Brit would have finished ahead of Leclerc.
“I don’t think today it was possible to do much more, to finish on a podium in particular. Maybe with Lando if we had given up attempting to finish on a podium, we could have finished ahead of Leclerc,” he explained.
“That is, if anything, the only opportunity in hindsight, that could have come to us, but it would have meant giving up a podium finish, which we were not ready to do.”
Featured image: Photo by Michael Potts/BSR Agency/Getty Images