Norris criticizes McLaren’s racing strategy

Lando Norris qualified his third McLaren for the Japan Grand Prix and was the best of the rest behind pairing Red Bull drivers. Yet his race left a lot to be desired including questions over McLaren’s pit wall strategy.

McLaren committed to two pit stops, while Ferrari were trying something different for Charles Leclerc due to his poor starting position. This meant Lando Norris raced ahead of Leclerc on lap 12 and was tasked with overtaking him, although the Ferrari man would be on older rubber.

Lando made his way through the field but was stopped when he got behind the Monegasques Ferrari driver. He struggled lap after lap after failing to pass, so his team decided to call him for new tires on lap 26. The problem was Leclerc was second in front of McLaren on the line, he also crashed on one lap, leaving. Norris again caught up behind the Ferrari but now both drivers had the same level of tire wear.

With Leclerc then expected to race to the finish, Norris once again worked his way past the Ferrari man and crossed the finish line with a gap of 3 seconds to Leclerc at the checkered flag.

When the team instructed Norris to “hit the box, box” a second time, he questioned whether he was really stopping too early. As it turned out Leclerc pitted in front of him anyway and the time to overtake the Ferrari was gone.

Teams often tell their drivers who are stuck behind another but in the pit window, to do the opposite (ie pit or not pit) to the driver in front. McLaren did not give these instructions to Lando who eventually came home 10 seconds behind Carlos Sainz in third place on the pole strategy.

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The problem for Norris was that he had an extra ten laps to give the last tires compared to Carlos Sainz who started behind the McLaren driver but finished third.

The McLaren team boss tried to deflect any criticism of his strategists preferring to believe Ferrari had the best race pace on the day.

“There were no issues. The final classification is on the order of the speed of the competition,” he explained to the gathered media. “We tried to go on the podium by stopping early, making sure we could hold the position in front of Carlos, and attack Perez.

“In the end there was not enough speed in the car. That’s fair enough. It’s a reflection of our competitiveness at this stage of the season. Great job by Charles and Ferrari enabling one stop.

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“It was impossible for us,” insisted Stella. “And even then, it wasn’t the fastest strategy. Good for Ferrari to keep the tires for a long time. But it wasn’t about one or two stops. It was a real drive.”

Although Stella is supported by many F1 strategists who believed that the two-stop race was fast, the unbalanced nature of the run that Lando Norris was asked to do, did not give the maximum from each set of tires, which is responsible for some of the time The British driver lost to his rivals Ferrari.

“It was a tough race,” Norris was admitted to Sky F1. “I think compared to those guys who had good speed, compared to the Ferraris, it’s not enough.

“I think everything went backwards in terms of Red Bull, Ferrari, us, which is a shame. It doesn’t feel good when you start third and you kind of fall back and feel like you’re fighting a bit of a losing battle against these guys because they can do so much more .They can go longer and widen to have a larger delta of the tire.

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It is even more important that McLaren stick to their best race strategy rather than bee forced by others around them. It was explained over team radio to Norris, his second stop about 10 laps before Sainz lapped the Mercedes of George Russell.

However, Mercedes were never a threat to McLaren, as the former world champions attempted a one-man race that they were forced to abandon. George Russell who led the Silver Arrows home finished more than 20 seconds off the time set by McLaren’s Lando Norris.

If Norris had followed the same strategy as Sainz, in all likelihood he would have finished at least one place ahead of Leclerc.

Lando admitted Ferrari and Leclerc opened up well by planning their man’s way up from eighth to fourth during the race, as he tried a slower strategy than his team-mate. Yet he also criticized his team for the duration of its pit stops in Japan.

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“Charles did a good job going that distance on one set of tires and then I’m surprised we pitted as early as we did to be honest with you. Because that just kept it in line with what Ferrari did, and we covered George (Russell) which I didn’t think maybe we needed to do.

“This is something that we will discuss during the meeting. Maybe the discussion of whether we could do a better job for P4. It’s always difficult to make those decisions at that time, we didn’t even know he was going to argue.”

Ferrari under Fred Vasseur are relatively calm about their operations these days, in stark contrast to the past two years when almost a week went by without a direct failure from the Scuderia’s pit wall.

McLaren tried to cover up a bad driver at Suzuka, and certainly lost a point or two in the process. The team needs to regain their composure for what will be an exciting China with just one practice session before Sprint qualifying on Friday afternoon.

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Former Aston Martin strategist and now Sky F1 analyst, Bernie Collins, agrees that McLaren cost Norris time with its unbalanced stations.

“(Andrea) Stella said the two stations did not make a difference. I think that is correct. But what made the difference was that Lando stopped four laps earlier than Sainz at the first stop, then jumped 10 laps earlier at the second stop,” he said.

“In a race where we are talking about a big scale, doing 10 extra laps in the last set is a big problem in terms of the overall race time. It would lose important race time.

“Most of the 10 seconds would have been lost through the low pit stops. They will have to look at the race that Ferrari did – when they chose to stop, not cover Russell, then try to pass him later. It was important in terms of the overall race time.

Carlos Sainz seems to be in trouble for Ferrari. Ever since Lewis Hamilton announced he was replacing the Spaniard, F1 observers alike up and down the paddock have been looking to see how Carlos will respond to losing his Scuderia car.

The results to date are embarrassing for the Maranello bosses as Sainz has outscored Charles Lelcerc in every Grand Prix this year and has finished ahead of his teammate in every race he has started, including his victory in the 2024 Australian GP…. READ MORE