The weekend of the Chinese GP gave us a déjà vu of what happened in Australia, with McLaren on the top step setting the pace, while the others played the role of pursuers, but at a safe distance. However, unlike Melbourne, this time the Woking team managed to convert the result, bringing not one, but two cars to the podium.
It was a race where the leadership of the MCL39 was never really under threat, allowing McLaren to secure a double podium, probably the first of many to come, though not without some nervous moments.
Eight laps from the end, in fact, a radio message from Lando Norris could have changed the face of the GP more than the final standings suggest, as a braking system issue put the Briton’s second place at risk, forcing him to slow down to finish the race safely.
“The brake pedal is getting longer,” Lando Norris indicated, referring to the fact that the pedal’s travel increased lap after lap, despite keeping the same braking approach. McLaren had already identified the issue well before Lando Norris mentioned it over the radio, tracking the situation’s development from the first signs until the checkered flag.
There was a leak in the system
At the end of the race, Andrea Stella explained that the problem appeared about twenty laps before the end, with engineers instructing Norris on how to adapt to a progressively worsening situation during the last ten laps: “We’re happy with the double podium, but we had a failure on Lando’s car with the brake pedal that we had to manage in the last twenty laps.”
“Lando and the team did a great job managing the situation and adapting his driving style to the problem, which then worsened to the point of threatening the result, which is unacceptable from a reliability point of view, we have to do better,” explained McLaren’s Team Principal.
The team has already identified the cause of the issue, a leak in the system, though Andrea Stella didn’t go into detail, only suggesting that it wasn’t related to the circuit itself: “We know the cause of the issue, but I don’t want to reveal it for IP reasons, but there was a leak in the system.”
To illustrate to Norris during the race what scenario he was facing, it was immediately explained that the braking force remained unchanged, but the brake pedal travel itself was increasing lap after lap. To alleviate the situation, Lando Norris was advised to limit the peak pressure on the pedal during the hardest braking points to prevent the leak from worsening.
“The pedal travel was getting longer, and we had to avoid reaching the peak pressure, so he had to apply less pressure to the pedal, to the point that in the final laps, he was almost grazing the throttle, using the least pressure possible on the brake to stop the car and make the corner. This was to prevent the leak from worsening too fast,” added Andrea Stella.
Lando Norris adapted but still tried to close the gap
Clearly, for a driver, being without brakes is one of the worst-case scenarios, so much so that Lando Norris compared it to one of his worst nightmares. But how did it affect his race? And how did the Briton adapt during the last ten laps?
The problem manifested mainly with three main consequences: the pedal travel increasing, the need to use less pressure during braking, and the modification of brake balance. “Lando, the situation is getting worse. In short, the front circuit will maintain pressure, while the rear will lose it, but there will still be braking power,” said Norris’ race engineer via radio during the race to update him on how the situation was evolving.
For the driver in the car, the sensation was similar to constantly increasing the brake balance toward the front, increasing the risk of a lock-up.
The interesting aspect is that, analyzing the data from the final part of the race, it can be seen that in the laps immediately after the first mention of the problem, Norris didn’t slow down or increase his lap times, as he was even caught by his race engineer.
“Lando, we see you’re fast. This is one of those things we discussed. I’d rather finish second than not finish at all. No harsh braking,” was the message from Will Joseph to Norris, just a few laps from the end. In the braking zone of Turn 14, in fact, he progressively reduced the pedal pressure with lift-and-coast, while in the other two braking points of Turns 6 and 11, he didn’t always follow the race engineer’s instructions. In fact, on lap 53, he even set the best time of the race.
Only from lap 54, with three laps remaining, did the Briton significantly increase his lap times, making a noticeable jump between laps, as he started saving the brakes more noticeably at every point on the track, probably both because he realized there would be no opportunity to catch Oscar Piastri and because, as the engineer suggested, the data showed the situation had become critical.
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