McLaren F1 chief opens up on issue affecting Lando Norris

McLaren F1 boss Andrea Stella has opened up on the pit stop problems which have hit Lando Norris of late.

The Brit currently sits 25 points behind team-mate and title rival Oscar Piastri in the drivers' championship standings, after an all-round chaotic weekend last time out in Baku.

Piastri crashed out of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix on lap one and after starting way back in seventh on Sunday, Norris failed to improve on that position.

But what was perhaps most alarming was the fact that yet again, Norris was the victim of a slow pit stop in the McLaren garage.

McLaren's struggles in the pits were the main talking point at the previous championship round in Monza after the mechanic working on Norris' front left tyre had trouble tightening it, resulting in a 5.9 second stop that allowed Piastri to (temporarily) overtake him.

Norris then suffered in the pits again in Baku for the second race in a row, this time with a 4.1 second pit stop.

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Stella shuts down pit stop problem

Speaking to Sky Sports after the race in Baku, team principal Stella denied that the slow stop had an impact on Norris' race.

"The pit stop itself didn't make any difference because we would have ended up pretty much in the area of Leclerc," Stella said. "For me, the most important takeaway was that the car wasn't fast enough.

"With a fast enough car, I think we would have been able to overtake and then have some free air and in free air actually use the full potential."

Speaking after that explanation to the written media, Stella did clarify that his team were still assessing the impact of their latest mishap, claiming that pit stops were an area McLaren intended to focus on.

"We still have to check whether, even with the fastest pit stop, we could have been ahead or not of a Ferrari," he continued.

"Then we managed to overtake and regain this position, which was good. It was important for the points and for Lando's championship. But definitely in terms of pit stops, that's an area in which we have already concentrated our efforts.

"But as a matter of fact, we need to keep working because there's some important performance that is available through pit stops. We have seen that the racing, if anything, is getting tighter and tighter, so the impact of a pit stop now gets more and more important."

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