Inside McLaren’s slow pit stops: Data shows no difference between Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri. After Monza, McLaren's pit stop performance came under scrutiny.

The world championship battle between Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris now enters its final, most intense phase — the part that will truly test the drivers’ endurance, both physically and mentally. Six Grand Prix remain, where every detail can make a difference and every mistake could prove decisive, including those made during pit stops.

This topic became especially prominent after the summer break and was central at Monza, where a slower pit stop for Lando Norris saw him fall behind his teammate. This sparked a series of discussions that led McLaren to swap the drivers’ positions in that race — a decision that divided opinions but aligns with the “fairness” principle the team has followed throughout the season.

McLaren meticulously analyzed every slow pit stop, which have occurred repeatedly in races after the summer break. As already noted after the Baku Grand Prix, the causes are not only technical but also human — an inevitable risk when striving for perfection and trying to consistently match near-limit pit stop times.

The challenge isn’t speed, but consistency

It’s clear that McLaren does not lack pure speed: the team has recorded the three fastest pit stops of the season, including Piastri’s recent 1.91-second stop at Monza. The real challenge lies in consistency, rather than the ability to achieve peak performance.

The key is not simply completing stops quickly, but doing so consistently. That’s where the true challenge lies, and where mistakes often emerge: when crews try to shave tenths of a second, automatic movements under pressure can lead to small errors. Typically, these errors are isolated to a single tire rather than multiple tires simultaneously.

“Regarding pit stops, it really comes down to a combination of human factors, execution, and hardware quality, and how the hardware makes the tire change operation simpler. In our analysis, we identified the need to improve in all areas from a human perspective, but we also know that our hardware, such as the wheel guns, makes the process more complex than it should be,” explained McLaren’s Team Principal.

Although he did not go into detail beyond mentioning the wheel guns, the issue could also involve the design of the wheel nut and how the tool engages during the stop. Another theory is that operating temperatures during consecutive pit stops make the second stop slightly slower. However, in many cases, differences are minimal, and errors have occurred even in isolated incidents.

How McLaren is addressing the issue

Andrea Stella explained that new equipment is planned for next year. Meanwhile, efforts are also focusing on human factors, with mechanics working to perfect procedures and automated movements to minimize errors: “We are applying some corrections that will take effect next year. At the same time, we are working with the team to mitigate some of the difficulties introduced by the hardware.”

To monitor the work, McLaren, like other teams, uses sensors on the wheel guns to precisely record the duration of each pit stop phase, from unscrewing the wheel to the next tightening. This system provides engineers with valuable data to pinpoint the root cause of mistakes.

Interestingly, as seen after Baku, the control systems work as intended. At Monza, for example, immediately after removing the gun without completing the tightening phase, the LEDs began flashing to signal an anomaly. In Azerbaijan, the lights did not change from blue to green until the operation was fully completed.

No significant difference between Norris and Piastri

Another key question is the impact of these errors on the championship battle. At Monza, Norris’s problematic pit stop could have cost him valuable points. However, the issue goes beyond a single race: small mistakes in pit stops can also be decisive in strategic scenarios such as undercuts or overcuts, risking valuable positions to rivals.

It has been suggested that Norris has been affected more frequently by pit stop errors. While it is true that Lando was slightly less fortunate after the summer break, season-long data does not confirm this perception. Excluding stops where drivers served penalties, Piastri’s average pit stop time is 2.96 seconds, compared to 3.02 seconds for Norris — a difference of just six hundredths of a second.

Here is a breakdown of pit stop times (seconds) throughout the 2025 season for both drivers, including slower stops over 3.5 seconds:

The count includes errors and stops exceeding 3.5 seconds, considered high by team standards. Even here, there is no significant difference: both Piastri and Norris recorded seven stops above this threshold, some influenced by consecutive Virtual Safety Car or Safety Car periods. Similarly, the number of stops under 2.5 seconds, the internal target, is also comparable.

Andrea Stella emphasized: “Regarding whether these issues affect Lando or Oscar more, our analysis shows that when averaging pit stop times across the season, they are virtually identical. The recent perception is just a coincidence caused by a narrow timeframe of recent events affecting Lando. Overall, the data does not support a difference for the entire season. It’s purely coincidental.”