Source:REUTERS/Lisi Niesner
[Saba Sports News] According to motorsport.com, after encountering pit stop issues again at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix – where Lando Norris suffered slow stops for the second consecutive race – McLaren Team Principal Andrea Stella believes the team needs to improve its pit stop equipment. Norris was McLaren’s only points scorer in Baku, finishing seventh, while his championship rival Oscar Piastri retired after a crash on the first lap. However, Norris’s efforts to advance through the field were hampered by a slow 4.1-second stop on lap 38, caused by a problem with the right-front wheel gun. This released him behind the cars of Charles Leclerc and Liam Lawson, whom Norris only managed to pass in the final 13 laps. Regarding this, Stella stated: “In terms of pit stops, it’s an area where we have already focused attention to resolve. But the fact is, we need to keep working because there is an important performance advantage to be gained through pit stops, and we are seeing that races are becoming increasingly tight. So, the impact of pit stops is now becoming more and more important. Therefore, for the remainder of this season and considering next year’s car, we must work from a pit stop perspective, both in terms of the execution of the stop and also the hardware, to make it simpler and more natural for our crew to perform the stops. There are still some interaction issues between the wheel gun operator and the hardware that need improvement from a hardware standpoint.”