McLaren boss Andrea Stella said another set of botched starts for Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri at the Formula 1 Dutch Grand Prix represented “a significant missed opportunity” for the team.
Norris and Piastri, starting first and third at Zandvoort on Sunday, endured sluggish getaways at lights out, slipping behind Max Verstappen and George Russell respectively.
For Norris, it was no matter as the Briton passed Verstappen on Lap 18 of 72 and soared off to claim victory with a winning margin of 22s.
Piastri meanwhile, rued spending “about 60 of the 70 laps within a second of the car in front, so that made life pretty painful.”
Getting trapped in dirty air for most of the Grand Prix cost Piastri a podium and Stella believed a one-two was on the cards dor McLaren.
“I think if with Oscar we had not lost the position, I think it would be a different race.
“And Oscar today had the pace to beat Max. So it’s a significant missed opportunity, I would say.
“At the same time, we approach this like any other opportunity you have, be it human performance, team performance or car performance.
“There’s just analysis, review and then see what factors you have under your control that you have to improve.”
Given the short run down to Turn 1 at Zandvoort, McLaren’s botched start was all the more alarming.
For Norris, it isn’t the first time he’s struggled to get away from pole position, with Zandvoort marking the sixth time across Sprints and GPs that the McLaren driver hasn’t led at the end of Lap 1 after starting from the front of the grid.
Norris rated his team-mate as “one of the best starters on the grid,” adding “I’m not as good as him, but there or thereabouts.”
Formula 1’s most recent race winner argued “we know what to do. We know what’s required to do a perfect start. But we’re talking about fine margins here.
“Because we both didn’t get it right, it seems like maybe there was more underlying issue or something wasn’t how it was supposed to be, or we’ve clearly misjudged something more than what others did.”
With overtaking coming at a premium at Zandvoort and indeed many other circuits, Stella is right when he says “the start is such a fundamental element to go racing, it’s as important as car performance,” especially with dirty air having a significant effect on pace in 2024, akin to the pre-ground effect regulation cycle.
“We do have to look very carefully into the details about why our competitors seem to gain a little bit on us,” Stella said.
“I think statistically over the course of the season we are competitive from a launch point of view. But we see that there are some cars, like Verstappen for instance, who seem to be performing very well at the start.
“If you can capitalize a good qualifying performance with a good start, it makes your life so much easier.
“So definitely we have to look into this and as I’ve already said, this comes from the driver in terms of their launch procedure execution. And it comes from a team point of view because there are some aspects which are under teams’ control.
“We need to look into what kind of optimisation we are able to do.”
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