Norris questions McLaren strategy against Verstappen

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Lando Norris has questioned McLaren’s strategy after he was beaten by Max Verstappen at the Japanese Grand Prix.

Norris followed Verstappen for all 53 laps around the Suzuka Circuit and pitted on the same lap as the Red Bull driver, almost drawing fully alongside him on the pit exit which was as close as he got to taking the lead.

The McLaren driver never got within one second of Verstappen to get DRS as the latter managed his pace perfectly to claim his first win of the 2025 Formula 1 season.

“I could see Max quite clearly for the whole race, but just couldn’t make any inroads, so I think him in clean air was enough to stay in that position and he didn’t make any mistakes. He drove a good race,” said Norris.

“The race was won yesterday in hindsight, and I guess we always kind of know the better position you start, the more chance you have of winning.

“But I think our pace was probably slightly better, but not enough to get through the dirty air, kind of get into the DRS, and then passing is a whole other story because it’s pretty much impossible to pass here.

“We tried some things. Maybe we could have tried a bit more with strategy. Overcut or undercut, we just boxed on the same lap for some reason. So some things we’ll discuss, but good points for us as a team. Decent points for me. Of course, would have liked a little bit more, but have to take second sometimes.”

Piastri, running in third, was the first of the front runners to pit instead but was far enough behind to not be a threat to Verstappen or Norris with the undercut attempt.

“I probably should have tried to undercut, I think,” said Norris, who leads Verstappen by just one point in the Drivers’ Championship.

“The thing is there’s always the Safety Car risk and so forth. I think I could have gone longer because I don’t think I would have lost position, so that wasn’t off the cards.

“I think we probably should have just tried to run the card and then tried something different. But it just wasn’t today. So yeah, things we’ll talk about.

“Honestly, I think the undercut is not easy here because the Hard is not mega in the first sector. So whether that even would have worked, I’m unsure. And Max still always had a little buffer to me. So even if I did have a good out lap, I don’t think it was enough to probably get past anyway.”

Stella explains why Piastri pitted first

Last season, McLaren caused themselves a headache at the 2024 Hungarian Grand Prix by pitting Norris first even though Piastri was leading the race.

Unlike Hungary, Piastri did not undercut Norris in Sunday’s race but it almost forced Red Bull to react by pitting Verstappen.

Asked why Norris was not given the undercut chance, McLaren team principal Andrea Stella said: “We could [have] but I think pitting Lando would have meant that we could not pit Oscar, and this would have been a problem for Oscar.

“Oscar would have waited, which I think would have been a problem with the cars, especially Russell, that pitted and we needed to cover.”

The other option for Norris was to go longer than Verstappen to have fresher tyres for the second half of the race but Stella thinks this would not have worked.

“We saw that staying out would not have been faster than pitting,” he added to Sky Sports F1.

“We saw that from [Mercedes’] George Russell, who was fast on the hard tyres after pitting.

“It takes about eight tenths of a second to attack the car ahead. As soon as you get within one second you have dirty air and performance drops. Today I think it was not possible to overtake.”

Norris: Verstappen is last guy I expect to give me space

Norris nearly jumped Verstappen in the pit lane after a slow pit stop from Red Bull led to last year’s title protagonists almost going side by side at the pit exit.

Verstappen was in front though and Norris drove onto the grass, claiming on the radio he was “forced off”.

“The guys just did a very good pit stop under pressure,” said Norris when reflecting on the incident in the press conference.

“It was our one opportunity to try and get a bit closer. I wasn’t even trying to race Max, I was just trying to cut the grass! Didn’t even know he was there, actually! So no, nothing. He had the position and he had the right to do what he did, so fair play.”

Verstappen also half-joked: “I think the grass was a bit – it was not really well cut on the right-hand side. So I think Lando saw that as well, and he made sure that it was nicely cut.”

Last year, McLaren notably missed out on race wins in Montreal, Silverstone and Sao Paulo partly due to strategy mistakes.

Verstappen trailed Norris in the three Grands Prix but ended up finishing ahead and won two of those races, which created a big points swing in the title race.

Although Stella does not declare that McLaren made any mistakes strategically, they missed a chance to make it three consecutive wins to start 2025 with the fastest car.

“The race was mostly decided yesterday. There wasn’t much action going on in the race and we ended up with the same result as qualifying,” said Stella.

“We got a lot of points and so it was encouraging again for our car but the others are not far behind.”

Formula 1 continues its triple-header in Sakhir for the Bahrain Grand Prix next weekend on April 11-13, live on Sky Sports F1. Stream Sky Sports with NOW – No contract, cancel anytime

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