McLaren denies its strategy cost Norris chance to win Japanese Grand Prix

McLaren insist it did not make a mistake by calling Lando Norris into the pits on the same lap as leader Max Verstappen during the Japanese Grand Prix.

Norris spent the entire race trapped behind Verstappen. Despite looking potentially quicker than the Red Bull driver at times he was never able to get close enough to attack him for the lead.

Both McLaren drivers ran close behind Verstappen in the first stint and the team brought in Oscar Piastri first for his pit stop. Red Bull reacted by bringing Verstappen in on the next lap but Norris surprisingly followed him in.

Other drivers, such as Andrea Kimi Antonelli, stayed out much longer in their first stint. However McLaren team principal Andrea Stella said doing the same for Norris would not have given him a better chance to win.

“We saw that staying out would have not been faster than pitting,” he told Sky. “We saw that from Russell, as soon as he pitted and he went on the new hard [tyre] he was very fast.

“So clearly there wasn’t the possibility, like there is sometimes, to go for what’s called the ‘overcut’: You stay out, you try to go faster than the car that pitted. Today it was not possible.”

He pointed out the characteristics of Suzuka have changed since the first third of the track was resurfaced, contributing to considerably quicker lap times.

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“The degradation, with the new Tarmac, Suzuka has changed completely its personality. The degradation is now very low, and this means that it gets very difficult to overtake if you are on the same strategy. It takes like eight tenths of a second to be able to even attack the car ahead.”

Stella said the team’s strategy was dictated by the lack of opportunities to pit their drivers into free air earlier in the race.

“The race was mostly decided yesterday when, for a matter of a few milliseconds, Verstappen managed to score the pole position. He defended it in the first lap today, and then there wasn’t much action going on.

“I think the pit stop timing was pretty much set by the other people pitting. There was not much to play with and it just ended up with the same result as qualifying.”

Despite failing to win a grand prix for the first time this year, McLaren extended their lead in the constructors’ championship. Verstappen cut Norris’s lead in the drivers’ championship to a single point.

“It’s a good result, still, for us,” said Stella. “A lot of points for the constructors and a lot of points for both our drivers.

“It’s encouraging, again, the indications from the performance of our car. But clearly we see that the others are not far and sometimes even ahead.”

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