Lando Norris on McLaren’s nightmare at F1 Bahrain Grand Prix: “Mechanics had a lot of pit stop practice”
The McLaren driꦡver encountered issues from Lap 1 of the 2023 season-opener, eventually pitting five times before his car was finally retired on its sixth stop.
His teammate 168澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果历史:Oscar Piastri, on his F1 debut, became th♏e first driver ꦑof the new season to retire with separate problems.
“I ꦫthink the best thing is🥃 the mechanics did a lot of pit stop practices,” Norris said. “That’s the biggest positive.
“I think the pace was ok-ish and we could have scor🦋ed a point today at least so it’s a shame we had the🍌 problems we did.
“Good st𝕴art, good launch, made up a few positions and then we had problems from Turn 1 basically – pneumatic problems ꧟and various other issues.
“That just brought out us of the race more and ꧒more, we had to pit every ten laps a♕nd that was it.”
Team principal And𝓀rea Stella explained: "There was a pneumatic pressure leak on Lando's car. We discovered this leak relatively soon in the race.
"Then we knew that it was possible only to do 10, 11 laps 🐽each time before having to refill.
"We decided to stay in the race, we decided to try and stay at least within one lap from th๊e leader within theꦏ last 10 laps.
"Then if there's a safety car, try and see if there was🍌 an opportunity. We did six stop🍸s."
Piastri was forced to retire when an attempt to fit a new steering wheꦬel, to solve an electrical problem, failed.
Stella said: "The electronic damage was further down the line around the steering column. So, the steering wheel wasn't the problem. It was a problem with the harness probably. W🎀e are investigating. Not fixable in a short time."
McLaren have experienced a horrible start to 2023 - Norris was spotted punching a wall in fru🍰s👍tration during preseason testing in Bahrain.
CEO Zak Brown had already admitted thatꦚ the car’s development was behind schedule.
James was a sports journalist at Sky Sports for a decade covering everything from American sports, to football, to 💝F1.
