How a small pitstop mistake derailed Lando Norris’s Azerbaijan GP

McLaren's race hinged on a single pitstop for Lando Norris, the team's only driver in the Azerbaijan Grand Prix after Oscar Piastri crashed out during the first lap. But a poor pitstop ruined his chances of a top-five finish.

"The seconds there were so critical because he would have cleared that battle!" Karun Chandhok of Sky Sports F1 noted. "That's massively frustrating for Lando Norris and McLaren.

"It's the front-right gun which struggled to tighten up the wheelnut."

Norris boxed on lap 38, but an issue with the front-right wheel turned it into a four-plus-second stop. This dropped him down to eighth behind Racing Bulls' Liam Lawson and Ferrari's Charles Leclerc, rather than rejoining in the clean air as the team expected. 

While he had a 17-lap offset to the Monegasque, overtaking at Baku is a difficult task. But the race was on for Norris, who overtook Leclerc on the 41st lap on the run down to Turn 1. Two laps later, he was trapped behind Lawson and Red Bull's Yuki Tsunoda, with the Ferraris in his mirrors. Unfortunately, a DRS train made it difficult to make any progress.

Charles Leclerc, Ferrari, Lando Norris, McLaren, Isack Hadjar, Racing Bulls Team

Photo by: Bryn Lennon / Formula 1 / Getty Images

"It really hasn't worked for Lando with his slow stop - he would have cleared this whole pack of cars!" Chandhok continued. 

Norris finished the race in a disappointing seventh.

"I'll have to review," said team principal Andrea Stella to Sky Germany. "I think there was an issue on the front right, I'll have to review and assess, certainly there's a few things to polish also on the pitstop side."

On being asked what it cost his driver, he said: "I'm not sure, we should look carefully at the timing, I'm not sure if the one, one and a half second would have been fundamental or not. It's better to look carefully at the data and then when you have the facts, assess what was possible."

Norris was also asked about his time in the DRS train: "I don't think we were bad, but I could barely keep up with Tsunoda and there were parts of the track where the Red Bull was just unbelievably fast, had no chance to keep up with him in some areas so we clearly struggled a little bit this weekend, this race.

"The car was difficult to drive on a bit of a knife's edge at times, easy to either be just too slow, sometimes kind of feel like you're there and then lock up and then something goes wrong. The car didn't fill us with a lot of confidence this weekend and I think that showed from probably both of our performances," he said of himself and his team-mate. 

Bernie Collins of Sky Sports F1 have her own analysis: "When I looked quickly at the data we had on the pit wall, should have come out ahead of Leclerc and Tsunoda [after his pit stop]. Then he missed the opportunity to undercut Lawson.

"So actually, even without any other overtakes, he should have been P5 without that slow pit stop. So it was very costly.

"He would have had a much better chance at Antonelli and Sainz if he had been ahead of Lawson. So I think McLaren are going to look at that pit stop and think it was very, very detrimental to their day, it's also the second race in a row they have had a slow pit stop. That's something they need to get on top of."