Lando Norris reckons there will be review of the F1 Japanese GP strategy after losing podium, as Andrea Stella explains the idea.
Having started third on the road in F1 Japanese GP, McLaren’s Norris expected a podium at least by the end of it. But they were beaten to it by Ferrari, not just Carlos Sainz but also Charles Leclerc, who started fourth and eighth on the road.
While Sainz was always a threat, the one stop strategy by Leclerc came in handy in the end as he managed to beat several cars due to one less stop even though it was a slower strategy where the car’s pace didn’t dictate his positioning.
That was the idea as Stella explained. He thought while Leclerc managed to do the one stop, it was not an ideal strategy as Norris concurred. Eventually, Ferrari got the job done which is what matters, as McLaren were left with just fifth place.
That is why Norris noted about a review into what transpired. He didn’t think that Ferrari were awful lot quicker in the grand prix, it is just the circumstances that helped them coupled with a better tyre management from their end.
McLaren were trying to cover off the Mercedes pair too, which Norris reckons was a bit of stretch as he felt that he was not under the threat from them as much Oscar Piastri was. In covering them, they lost out to Ferrari when Leclerc elected to pit at the same time.
“It was as expected, to be honest with you,” said Norris about the result. “I don’t think Ferrari’s race pace was anything incredible, I don’t think it was as good as Red Bull thought it would be. It was hard in the beginning when you’re trying to push to keep up with a quicker car or push to stay ahead of the Ferraris, which were quicker.
“You hurt the tyres more and it’s just kind of like a bit of a spiral, fighting a losing battle out there. So, not a bad day. We are where we kind of expected to be in the end, which is behind Ferrari. It’s where we’ve been all year. It was no different. I think yesterday we just excelled, I put in some very strong laps, and made us look maybe a bit too good.
“And the race, it was a bit more back to reality. Regarding the pit stop, I don’t know, I was told to box, so I listened what I was told to do by the team. But it is something we will review with the team, I think we did what was best at the time, but it’s always hard to know. Maybe we didn’t expect Charles to box? I’m not sure.
“He was close enough that you would kind of want to say, ‘Yeah, if we did something different, maybe we had a better chance’. I think we covered George, which I feel like we maybe didn’t need to do, and because we tried to cover George, we boxed at the same time as Charles. I for sure could have gone another five, six laps, created a tyre delta, and then come back through like Carlos did.
“So just an opinion, but it’s something we’ll discuss and review,” summed up Norris, who felt they couldn’t have undertaken one stop as Leclerc. “I mean he was slower than what Carlos was, so as an ideal strategy, no,” he said. “But it was difficult to overtake, so when we are slower, I have to say, yes. We thought about it but with our speed and our disadvantage to Ferrari, we didn’t think it was the correct decision.”
Strategy in the race –
Stella: “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. 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 far to beat Perez? So, I thought it was worthwhile trying that. Ultimately, this put us on race which might have been slightly unpreferred from overall time point of view, but I think it was very worthwhile trying. So on Lando’s side we are happy that we wanted to try finishing on the podium.”
Timing of second stop for Norris –
Stella: “The timing of the second stop was forced by Leclerc. And also there was Carlos approaching Lando. So, Carlos would have overtaken Lando. And once Carlos overtake Lando, Lando loses time, and then he ends up behind Hamilton and Russell. So, we were… because when you race so many cars, you kind of 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. With Oscar, there were many different options at all.
“So if we look at the final classification, it goes in the order of car competitiveness. A shame that with Oscar we lost the position to Russell with the final lock up. Otherwise, we would have finished ahead of Mercedes and that, like I say, could pretty much the finishing order – considering that Fernando just, he has done a very good job like he normally does, so he’s a little special in that respect and I think, you know, alters a little bit potentially the competitiveness of the car, – we are happy. We are third best scoring team once again, consolidating the third position in the championship. That’s a positive outcome.”
Done something against Ferrari –
Stella: “You can do something against Ferrari, if you are in a… with today’s level of competitiveness, only if you are in a track in which you can keep people behind.
But here the degradation is so high, and the overtaking is relatively possible – therefore, you really need… like the finishing order normally is just the car pace, unless you have really something going wrong. So I don’t think, 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’s, 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.”
One-stop possible –
Stella: “With us having two sets of hard, like the one stop wasn’t a consideration. It was actually a consideration under the red flag. Like, even when you saw Mercedes starting on a hard, we though maybe they’re going to try double hard, but the degradation is too high. And even Mercedes they needed to go on two stop. I think the one stop why it looks like attractive because you do one stop less, but it is a slower strategy. And if you stay on an optimal two, you regain all the time – just because of how high the degradation is. So Ferrari makes it work? Good for them. But it’s not like attempting a one stop you will gain race time. Race time comes with car pace.”
Qualifying saw better run but what happened in race –
Stella: “It’s a little bit of both. On a new soft tyre, we could mitigate some of the, you know, deficits that we have at the moment, like low speed when you have new rubber, a new soft rubber with a lot of grip, the corner becomes quite a bit shorter, you have the grip to compensate some of the weaknesses. And we could defend from this point of view. Like we didn’t lose much time at the hairpin or in some other low speed corners. But when you are in hard compounds, and then like I say every lap the tyre lose one tenth. So, 10 laps in your tyre is one second slower. This exposes car weaknesses a little bit more. So that’s why in the race we little bit more than in qualifying.”
Here’s Oscar Piastri on clash with George Russell and Fernando Alonso’s tactics
Here’s how F1 Japanese GP panned out
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