F1 | McLaren: pit stops are a real problem. Equipment will be modified
First Monza, then Baku: McLaren has now suffered two consecutive pit stop problems on the MCL39 of Lando Norris. Team principal Andrea Stella has admitted the issue is real and confirmed that the team will push for an upgrade of the equipment used for tyre changes during race weekends.
The Azerbaijan Grand Prix exposed several weaknesses for McLaren, a team that until this point had dominated the 2025 Formula 1 season, already securing the Constructors’ Championship and allowing its drivers to fight for the Drivers’ title with little outside interference. For the first time in months, both the MCL39 and the team showed that they are not invincible. On low-downforce tracks such as Monza and Baku, the papaya cars were no longer the benchmark, overtaken by a resurgent Red Bull that found a strong direction and became the reference point in Italy.
To make the Baku weekend even more complicated, a second consecutive pit stop problem cost Lando Norris several valuable seconds. Starting from seventh, the British driver had to fight his way back through the field to recover points, especially after teammate Oscar Piastri crashed out shortly after the start. The MCL39’s raw pace still allowed Norris to overtake the Ferraris, making the pit stop error less damaging in terms of result, but the issue remains and could resurface again in future races.
“We still need to verify whether, even with the fastest pit stop, we would have been able to overtake a Ferrari or not,” Andrea Stella explained after the race in Baku. “Then we managed to pass and reclaim that position, which was positive, important for the points and for Lando’s championship. But surely, in terms of pit stops, this is an area where we have already focused our efforts.”
The Baku mishap was the second in a row. On Sunday, the problem occurred with the right-front wheel during Norris’s stop on lap 37 of 51. At Monza, a similar issue during Norris’s stop on lap 46 had resulted in a pit stop time of 5.9 seconds. That delay dropped Norris behind teammate Oscar Piastri, forcing the team to order the Australian to hand the position back — a move that corrected the situation but also highlighted the embarrassment caused by the original mistake.
For this reason, Stella has made it clear that McLaren will work to improve the hardware, meaning the tools and equipment the mechanics use to change tyres during race weekends. The problem is real, and in his view, it must be solved quickly both for the remainder of this season and for next year.
“We need to keep working because there is significant performance that can be gained through pit stops, and we’ve seen that races are becoming increasingly close,” Stella said. “So the impact of a pit stop is becoming more and more important. For the rest of the season and also looking ahead to next year’s car, we have work to do on pit stop execution and also on the hardware, so that pit stops become more natural and straightforward for our team. There are still some interactions between the operator and the equipment that should be improved from the hardware point of view.”
Although the team still needs to conduct a full investigation into the incident, Stella believes that the issue in Baku was different from the one that occurred in Monza. “The pit stop problem today (in Baku) is different from the one we had in Monza. This was more related to the interaction between the operator and the wheel gun,” he explained.
“But we know that from a hardware perspective we are not fully optimized. Not because we did not want to be, but because you learn step by step. And we know there is room for improvement in terms of the equipment, in terms of the hardware of the tools and of the car, so that we can make life a little easier for our crew in the pit lane.”
McLaren may already have the speed to win championships, but as Stella’s words underline, every detail matters in Formula 1. With races decided by tenths of a second, pit stop performance could prove just as decisive as outright pace in the 2025 battle for the Drivers’ title.
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