'It didn't make any difference' - McLaren deny slow pit stop cost Norris

McLaren team boss Andrea Stella insisted a slow pit-stop did not prove fundamental to Lando Norris only finishing seventh in the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.

For the second successive day on a highly-eventful weekend in F1's title fight in Baku, Norris was presented with what appeared a golden chance to compound Oscar Piastri's woes after his team-mate and title leader, who had crashed out of qualifying, hit the wall and retired on the first lap of the race.

But Norris finished in the same position he qualified - seventh - after spending much of the 51-race behind other cars in a DRS train in a race featuring few overtakes across the top-10 positions.

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In an attempt to move him up the order through strategy, McLaren delayed Norris' sole pit stop to lap 37 of 51.

However, the Briton then experienced a slow 4.1-second service - his second delay in as many races after Monza in an incident that triggered a controversial swap back with Piastri - and emerged still behind Ferrari's Charles Leclerc, who was closely following Racing Bulls' Liam Lawson at the time.

Yuki Tsunoda, who McLaren had hoped to undercut after the Red Bull driver had also run long, then emerged from his stop just one lap later just ahead of that trio.

Amid the small gaps between the four cars after the stops, it appeared that the slow service may have cost Norris positional gains, but Stella saw things - and the reason for their surprisingly difficult race - differently.

"The pit stop itself didn't make any difference because we would have ended up pretty much in the area of Leclerc," Stella told Sky Sports F1.

"For me, the most important takeaway was that the car wasn't fast enough.

"With a fast enough car, I think we would have been able to overtake and then have some free air and in free air actually use the full potential."

Speaking a little while afterwards to the written press, Stella did say they were still assessing whether the stop cost Norris position to Leclerc - who he passed soon afterwards anyway - and that pit stops were an area McLaren were focusing on to improve.

"We still have to check whether, even with the fastest pit stop, we could have been ahead or not of a Ferrari," said Stella.

"Then we managed to overtake and regain this position, which was good. It was important for the points and for Lando's championship. But definitely in terms of pit stops, that's an area in which we have already concentrated our efforts.

"But as a matter of fact, we need to keep working because there's some important performance that is available through pit stops.

"We have seen that the racing, if anything, is getting tighter and tighter, so the impact of a pit stop now gets more and more important."

'Of course today I wanted more' - but Norris downplays 'missed opportunity' claims

Norris' failure to gain ground from where he started meant that he took just six points out of Piastri's championship lead after the Australian's first no-score of what, until Baku, had been a largely faultless campaign.

Piastri now leads Norris by 25 points - the points equivalent of one race win - with seven grands prix weekends left.

Red Bull's Max Verstappen, meanwhile, is now suddenly 69 points back on the Australian after his second win in a row.

But while Norris' weekend has inevitably been framed as one of missed opportunity given Piastri's travails, the Briton is not seeing it that way.

"I don't know why everyone says that," Norris told Sky Sports F1.

"I mean I did the best I could yesterday, the best I could today. The opportunities are there every weekend, you know.

"Every race I didn't win was an opportunity missed, so of course today I wanted more. It was not a good result, but I couldn't do anything more today. It was lost yesterday because of going out a bit early, not doing the best lap, maybe could have gained a couple of positions.

"But I don't think it would have changed anything today, it was just impossible to overtake. I look back to yesterday more than anything today.

"I thought the pace was alright today when it needed to be, long stint on the mediums. So do I think things have been a little bit better? Yes. Do I think anything would have changed? Probably not."

Piastri rues 'more silly mistakes' in Baku nightmare

For the usually ultra-reliable Piastri, Baku featured, in the words of his team boss Stella, "uncharacteristic mistakes" that the McLaren chief hopes "were all accumulated in this event".

Piastri's hopes of a podium from ninth on the grid were blown immediately as the Australian jumped the start, and then compounded the error by stopping and falling to the back of the field.

Piastri then made a misjudgement on the approach to Turn Five on the first lap, and drove his McLaren straight into the barriers, triggering a Safety Car.

And he later admitted: "Certainly not my finest moment. I just anticipated the start too much. A silly, simple error really with that.

"The crash - just didn't anticipate the dirty air in the way I should have. Clearly went into the corner way too hot and that was that.

"The grip level was low but I should know that. So, I'm certainly not blaming it on anything other than myself. Just didn't make the judgement calls that I need to at the right time, and that's obviously disappointing."

Piastri accepted he had made "simple lapses of judgement", although said he took comfort from the fact it was not due to overdriving to make up for a lack of pace.

"Friday was a tough day, Saturday the potential was very good. I had a lot of sequences or sectors that were incredibly strong, and I just never got it all together," he said.

Qualifying yesterday was what it was, and then today, just more silly mistakes. It was certainly a messy weekend, for sure, but I would be more concerned if I was slow and trying to make up for it that way, and having these errors because of that.

"The fact that they're just simple lapses in judgement, it's obviously not a position I want to be in or put the mechanics in, because it's been a rough weekend for them, but if I'm trying to find a silver lining, then I suppose I have that."

The 2025 Formula 1 title fight continues under the lights at the Singapore Grand Prix on October 3-5, live on Sky Sports F1. Stream Sky Sports with NOW - no contract, cancel anytime