Lando Norris reveals ‘not great’ pit stop blow with review requested

Lando Norris feels McLaren should have pitted him a lap earlier in the Belgian Grand Prix.

The polesitter, who had been passed by team-mate Oscar Piastri on the first racing lap, plans to review the pit stop strategy with the team to determine if there was a better chance to challenge for the win.

Could a different pit strategy have changed Lando Norris’ race?

After an 80-minute delay for weather, the 2025 Belgian Grand Prix kicked off in damp-but-drying conditions with polesitter Lando Norris leading the field to green heading into Lap 5, following a handful of laps behind the Safety Car.

But at Spa-Francorchamps, pole can be as much of a curse as a blessing; coming through Eau Rouge, Norris’ McLaren team-mate Oscar Piastri was able to swing by into a lead that he held through to the chequered flag.

With the track surface drying more quickly than anticipated, drivers soon began to consider pit stops for slick tyres around Lap 12.

Lewis Hamilton was the first driver to make the move, leaping from 18th on the grid to seventh on the track, and McLaren opted to follow over the next two laps — first Piastri, then Norris.

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Piastri took medium tyres, while Norris took hards. A slow stop for Norris briefly delayed his exit and, when he rejoined the track, he was eight seconds behind the leader — a gap that he wasn’t able to close before the chequered flag flew.

For the Briton, a review of pit stop strategy with the team is in order to better understand if there was a shot at victory.

Speaking to media after the race in the FIA press conference, Norris admitted that “I didn’t have the best Turn 1; hard to know how much that played a part” in eventually losing out to Piastri.

“At the same time, Oscar came past me pretty easily, so even if I had a better Turn 1, his run and the slipstream probably still would have got me,” Norris said.

“Not too disappointed; of course, disappointed to finish second.

“But yeah, when you saw Saturday and you saw today, then P1 didn’t look the best place to begin with.

“I also didn’t get the best Turn 1. So I need to look at what I could done better.”

Norris stated that he and the team will LAO review a potential battery issue he faced at the start of the race. When it came to taking hard tyres, though, there was no debate.

“Will [Joseph, race enginner] said, do I want the hard tyre? And I said, ‘Yes’,” Norris explained.

“I didn’t even know Oscar was on the medium, to be honest with you. So that didn’t influence my decision.

“It was just, I thought the hard tyre would be a slightly better tyre to the end, a bit trickier to get warmed up, and made the opening laps maybe a little bit more of a struggle, which I think it was.

“I think the last few laps I had the advantage in terms of grip, but was not a great pit stop.

“I was the second one to stop, so I think I lost like eight, nine seconds just by being the second car to box, and to catch Oscar from that gap is quite an achievement.

“So I didn’t think I’d be able to catch. I gave it a good shot; just not close enough.”

Asked if a double-stack should have been on the table, Norris said, “I need to ask the team.

“It’s tough because you’re also going to lose quite a good chunk of time doing that as well, but considering the slick tyre was so much better by that point…”

Norris then noted that he felt the decision to pit Piastri came late, which meant Norris needed to manage an additional lap on intermediates.

“Like Oscar said, it was a late call for us to box on that lap,” Norris explained.

“I think if we review it, we probably would have kicked ourselves a little bit for for staying out as long as we did. I think there was enough evidence that we should have boxed early.

“But no one boxed that that early; it was just Lewis, I think, that boxed one lap earlier than us.

“I think it was just more painful for me that Oscar kind of got the good lap. I had to go one lap longer.”

Still, he concluded, “That’s life.”

Coming into the Belgian Grand Prix weekend, Norris was riding a tide of back-to-back victories at both Austria and Silverstone, which allowed him to cut the gap between himself and championship leader Oscar Piastri down to just eight points.

However, Piastri couldn’t be stopped en route to his sixth victory of 2025. The Aussie driver retains the lead of the championship by 16 points, though the tight fight remains tight heading into the Hungarian Grand Prix, the final race before the F1 summer break.

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