McLaren reveal 'five-minute' response following Lando Norris crash
04/20/2025 02:10 AM
McLaren team principal Andrea Stella has revealed it took Lando Norris just five minutes to bury the memory of his qualifying crash ahead of the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix and switch his focus to the race. Requiring a clean qualifying session after beating himself up following small errors ahead of the one-lap showdown for the Bahrain Grand Prix a week previously, Norris shunted his car into a wall early in Q3 after appearing to be the man to beat. The Briton will start 10th on the grid whilst drivers' championship rivals Max Verstappen in his Red Bull, and McLaren team-mate Oscar Piastri start from pole and second on the grid respectively. At least Norris was swiftly able to shake off his latest qualifying error, with Stella insisting his driver's confidence this week is "definitely better than in Bahrain". He added: "We were all very encouraged, and I think this has been proven by the performance as well. "When you have an incident in qualifying, it's always unfortunate because. Lando could have been on the first row, and now he is starting from tenth. "These guys are race drivers. They have done this their entire life. I'm sure that's not the only disappointing Saturday that Lando might have had in his career. All drivers are very thick-skinned, and very used to that, very determined. "If anything, like in the briefing, our focus immediately shifted onto what tyres for tomorrow; how do we try to use the performance that we have shown on Friday. "It's not only a morale aspect, it's also almost a methodological aspect, like, how do I move from this point into, there's a race tomorrow. Let's be programmed and use the disappointment as additional determination. "I think when you are into the sport, when you are the athlete or the engineer, you are well trained, and sometimes you just have these five minutes of disappointment, and you know how to convert it. This is what I saw happen with Lando, and also with the team." McLaren - The car is not the star Stella effectively exonerated Norris of any blame, instead pointing an accusing finger at the car for the cause of the crash. The feeling is that with Norris pushing to the extreme limit of the car, it creates what Stella has described as an 'unpredictability' that then naturally becomes difficult to correct. This is what happened as Norris powered through the fast Turn 4 and 5 section, exiting awkwardly off the kerb that sent him into a wall. "When Lando tries to squeeze a few more milliseconds out of the car, what we see, and I think we are starting to see these even better in the data, the car doesn't respond as he expects," assessed Stella. "This is a behaviour that surprises him. Here it surprised him. The car understeered a bit in corner four, ended up on the outside curve, and this outside curve can be quite unforgiving. "This is an episode that I think starts from some of the work we have done on the car. It's made the car faster overall, but I think it's taken something away from Lando in terms of the predictability of the car once he pushes the car at the limit. "It's a responsibility of the team to try and improve the car, to try and correct this behaviour because we want Lando to be confident, comfortable that he can push the car, and when he needs to find a few milliseconds, he can do it. "What's important from Lando's side is that in the meantime, while we don't improve it [the car], he maintains the confidence and an ability to adapt."
