McLaren Team Principal Andrea Stella has explained the reason behind Lando Norris having his pole position time for Formula 1’s Chinese Grand Prix Sprint restored.
Norris excelled in the wet conditions present through SQ3 to storm to an unexpected pole at the Shanghai International Circuit with a 1.2-second margin over the rest.
However, the stewards had deleted the Briton’s best lap for exceeding track limits at the final corner, dropping him down the timesheets until it was reinstated again.
Stella believes Norris’ lap was removed because he had gone wide at Turn 15 on his previous lap and the stewards perceived that he could have gained an advantage.
But whilst such a regulation is written into the race director’s notes at other circuits, that has not been the case upon F1’s return to China for the first time in five years.
“We think it might have been because in the lap before he went off at the last corner and they might have thought that in this case having been off at the last corner he kind of has implications for the following lap,” Stella explained.
Stella has revealed that Norris had lost close to three-tenths on his delta when commencing his pole run due to the time lost running wide on the build-up to the lap.
“Yeah, it was reinstated by the FIA themselves and definitely because you go off out of the last corner you launch at much lower speed,” he said.
“And effectively Lando loses almost three-tenths because he’s been off at the previous last corner.”
He added: “We can enjoy a pole position which, like I say, is deserved by Lando and also I hope everyone at McLaren can enjoy this day.”
Oscar Piastri in the sister McLaren MCL38 struggled to match his team-mate’s electric speed and slumped to eighth place on the grid, 3s behind the benchmark pace.
However, Stella has disclosed that the Australian driver sustained an issue with his gearbox on the exit of the slow-speed hairpin at Turn 14 that wrecked his prospects.
“Congratulations, I think, go to Lando in particular because in these conditions it was very much a driver’s job to be done and he did it, so well done to Lando,” he enthused.
“Oscar as well, he had an issue unfortunately coming out of the hairpin because of the wheelspin, his gearbox went into neutral apparently and he lost a lot of time otherwise we could have had the two drivers high on the grid for the sprint but overall, yeah, a good session for us, we are happy.”
