McLaren’s Pit Stop Blunder Costs Norris Victory at Canadian Grand Prix
Lando Norris, Formula 1 driver for McLaren, expressed his frustration after a “wrong” call on his first pit stop cost him the lead at the Formula 1 Canadian Grand Prix, claiming his team “should have won” the race.
In the opening stages, Norris retained third place, carefully preserving his Intermediate tyres to overtake Max Verstappen and George Russell in consecutive laps. This allowed him to take the lead, with a commanding near eight-second advantage when Logan Sargeant’s stranded Williams required the Safety Car intervention on Lap 25.
However, McLaren failed to respond promptly to the Safety Car, failing to pit Norris and allowing him to circulate an additional lap behind the pace car. This tactical mistake ultimately led to Verstappen and Russell passing him, leaving Norris in third place.
Later in the race, Norris regained second place by repassing Russell, who made a mistake at Turn 8, marking Norris’ fifth podium finish of the season. Nevertheless, Norris was adamant that McLaren should have secured the top spot on the podium without the strategic mishap.
“We should have won the race today and we didn’t,” Norris emphasized. “So frustrating we had the pace, probably not in the dry at the end.”
He attributed the team’s failure to execute the pit stop correctly as the primary reason for missing out on victory.
“We didn’t do a good job I think, a good enough job as a team to box what we should have done and not get stuck behind the Safety Car.” Norris reiterated, “This was just making a wrong call.”
In a post-race interview, Norris dismissed the idea that the Safety Car’s timing hampered his chances, highlighting that McLaren had sufficient time to pit him on the same lap as his rivals to maintain the lead.
“I had enough time to box and we didn’t box,” he said. “So this was a mistake on us as a team.”
Norris supported the team’s decision to run an extended stint on Intermediate tyres, which momentarily allowed him to regain first position as other drivers struggled on slick tyres.
“Staying out on the Intermediate helped me,” Norris declared. “It helped me have a chance against George. So I overcut him.”
The 24-year-old Formula 1 driver acknowledged that Russell was able to close up and pass him due to his driving, adding, “I didn’t do a good enough job afterwards and he was clearly way quicker than us in the dry and even on the Hard tyres.”
“Formula 1 today” showed us that a split-second decision can alter the course of the race, as seen in the McLaren pit stop debacle. With this setback, Norris dropped to third in the Formula 1 standings, but the McLaren driver remains determined to bounce back in the next Grand Prix.
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