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Following heartbreak at Silverstone for Lando Norris, Ralf Schumacher believes changes might be needed at McLaren. But Andrea Stella disagrees
In the eyes of McLaren’s Lando Norris, the 2024 British Grand Prix should have had a different ending. Even McLaren’s CEO Zak Brown believed Norris or Oscar Piastri could have walked away victorious at Silverstone. This is a sentiment that the British driver clearly shares, as he states that they threw away his chance of winning at home.
Lando reflects on what might have been #F1 #BritishGP pic.twitter.com/Ln4fQc6ESR
— Formula 1 (@F1) July 8, 2024
Similar to the time he could have earned his first win in Formula One, Norris’ loss came down to a strategy blunder at his final pit stop. And like the 2021 Russian Grand Prix, Lewis Hamilton and Mercedes made the right call and beat Norris to the win. But no one will be more critical of the younger Brit than himself.
The critical moment in the race ?
Hamilton stays ahead of Norris as the McLaren driver exits the pits#F1 #BritishGP | Watch highlights ?
— Formula 1 (@F1) July 7, 2024
However, Former Formula One Driver turned Pundit Ralf Schumacher has put forward his criticisms of both Norris and the team. He told Sky Sports Germany:
“No, Norris is not ready [to be world champion] yet. But that could also be down to the structure. It could be that the engineer is not strong enough. That is always a very important reference person. You notice that he is now annoyed with himself, with the wrong decisions, and that he wants to grow from that. That’s part of it. It’s a learning process.”
He continued, “As a driver, you usually go into the race with a good idea of what the tyre is capable of. The team knows that too. You have to give yourself information. And then you, as a driver, can make the decision.”
Could McLaren benefit from a team restructure? Following the race, Norris was concerned about how many missed chances had passed him by this year. Could it be time for a change?
Andrea Stella is against restructuring
The timing and tyre selection of Norris’ final pit stop wasn’t the only glaring mistake McLaren made during the British Grand Prix. The extra lap Piastri made as the rain intensified may have cost him a potential chance of winning at Silverstone.
McLaren’s Team Principal Andrea Stella was asked whether the team needed to restructure to ensure that these mistakes don’t happen again. He responded:
“No, it’s not like you review your decisions. You see how the decision was made, you see what information we brought to the table. Was this information used in the best possible way or not? What were the contributions from the various people?”
He continued, “It wouldn’t help very much that I learned something, the race engineer learned something, we don’t learn all this as a group, so I think responsibility of the people, we go after this like we always do, review, learn and we go again.”
Is Stella right to trust that the right people are in the right places? Or does McLaren need to make some changes to take that next step towards becoming world champions once more?
Feature Image Credit: @McLarenF1 on X