McLaren team principal Andrea Stella says analysis has shown that perceptions of first-lap weakness from Lando Norris were overblown, although he believes that Norris is improving as he gains experience of starting from pole position.
Prior to the Singapore Grand Prix, Norris had a record of failing to retain the lead of a race at the end of the opening lap each of the seven times he had started from pole position, or first on the grid in a Sprint. In Singapore, however, he held off Max Verstappen and pulled comfortably clear to secure a dominant victory, and Stella says it was an aspect of Norris’ racing that has been analyzed closely but hadn’t shown a major weakness.
“I don’t disagree that at face value, starts and overall approach to the first corner or first lap might have looked like an opportunity for Lando,” Stella said. “But having done a little bit of analysis as a group, including Lando, we have gone through the season, every single start and every single first lap. And in fairness, even in cases in which Lando started in pole position and he was not the one leading at the end of first lap, we haven’t found that he had kind of given up very much in terms of performance.
“We reviewed Barcelona and we thought that [George] Russell would have been P1, even with Lando trying something different. There were some opportunities in terms of execution of the start, but we recognized that that was also on the team side.
“For instance, I think it was Zandvoort in which both cars had cold tires because of an issue from a team point of view and both cars didn’t have a great start. So I think, while at face value it looked like Lando had a significant opportunity there, actually the facts weren’t so clear.
[lawrence-auto-related count=3 category=1388]
“But definitely we have been focusing on the execution of the start and preparation of the tires. Lando himself, even the time we focus on start preparation during a weekend, is now more concentrated.
“And then, I think you gain confidence and you gain familiarity with starting from pole position and understanding, even in terms of territorial defense, what you need to do, even to dissuade people from going [for a move]. So I think this is part of the journey and it’s just good that we are now having to face this kind of opportunity.”
Stella says it has been a similar learning curve for McLaren itself, as it gets used to being a front-running team with a car capable of fighting for victory at every venue.
“I think there’s a combination of factors. Definitely the more you race at the front, the more you get familiar not only with the situation, but even with the approach that the team should have,” he said. “We were discussing that we should adjust our weekend schedule, because we need to have many more conversations, even with the drivers, in terms of internal competition, something that in the past wasn’t part of going racing.
“Likewise, from a strategic point of view, playing kind of defensive strategies in which you don’t have to be the first one pulling the trigger — you just sort of wait for the car in P2 to go and then you cover. These are scenarios that we were not very familiar and now we are getting familiar.
“So I think it’s fair to say that there’s a development of which the team are part of. Not only the drivers, but for me the most important thing is that even in the situations in which we had some missed opportunities, we approached them in such a constructive way, really leaning on our culture to make sure that we cash in the learning for these situations. We will have more opportunities if we keep the team together and we keep growing.
“So for me this is the most important thing and the one I’m more proud of, rather than the fact that we now can actually deliver performance. I’m more proud of [overcoming] when the times were difficult.”