McLaren Team Principal Andrea Stella has admitted the team compromised Lando Norris’ race time in pursuit of a podium finish in Formula 1’s Japanese Grand Prix.
Norris had qualified third behind the two Red Bull drivers, but he was unable to replicate his podium finish from last season as he dropped behind both the Ferrari cars.
The Briton’s race spiralled when Carlos Sainz’s faster Ferrari piled on the pressure in the opening stages, prompting McLaren to pit Norris to cover the undercut threat.
However, Norris would end up losing out when McLaren elected to pit him behind the one-stopping Charles Leclerc, who climbed from eighth on the grid up to fourth.
Ferrari elected to do the reverse with Sainz as the Spanish driver went long and then charged through from seventh place in the final laps to pass both Leclerc and Norris.
Stella is adamant the Woking-based squad has no regrets over the ambitious strategic choices it committed to as it wanted to prioritise the chase of a podium result.
“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,” Stella explained.
“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 unpreferred from overall time point of view. But I think it was worthwhile trying.
“So on Lando’s side we are happy that we wanted to try finishing on the podium.”
Norris had questioned the timing of his second pit stop as he lost his earlier advantage over Leclerc and dropped behind George Russell’s Mercedes on the pit exit.
Although Norris would breeze past his compatriot with a late braking move around the outside into Turn 1, he lost ground on Leclerc which he was unable to recover.
“The timing of the second stop was forced by Leclerc,” Stella admitted.
“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.”
Stella denies that beating Sainz to third was impossible due to the pace advantage Ferrari retained but suspects that splitting the Italian marque’s drivers was doable.
Asked whether McLaren could have kept position over Leclerc, Stella replied: “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.
“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.”
Meanwhile, Piastri endured a subdued race that ended with him making a mistake into the chicane on the penultimate lap and allowing Russell to steal seventh place.
“With Oscar, I don’t think there were many different options at all today,” Stella reviewed.
“If we look at the final classification, it goes in the order of car competitiveness. I think just a shame that with Oscar, with the final lock up, we lost the position to Russell.
“Otherwise, we would have finished ahead of Mercedes and that, like I say, could pretty much be the finishing order, considering that Fernando [Alonso] he has done a very good job like he normally does, so he’s a little special in that respect, and I think alters a little bit the competitiveness of the car.”
