Could Lando Norris have won the F1 Miami Grand Prix?

McLaren’s Andrea Stella believes Lando Norris could still have won the Formula 1 Miami Grand Prix despite pitting a lap after Andrea Kimi Antonelli.

Lando Norris was leading the race when Mercedes stopped Kimi Antonelli first on lap 26 of 57.

The world champion followed a lap later, but as he came out of the pitlane Antonelli – helped by his hard tyres being up to temperature – was able to blast by.

The successful undercut looked like a simple case of McLaren making a bad strategic call and handing Mercedes an opportunity, with Norris himself saying “we should have boxed first.”

However, Stella insists that Norris could still have held onto the lead but for a perfect storm of factors around the stop that cost vital tenths and left him more vulnerable to being passed by Antonelli as he left the pits.

“When you are in the lead, and you are in condition to retain the lead, like Lando was today in the first stint, then you definitely have a chance to win it,” he said.

“I feel the timing of the pit stop was the decisive factor.

“But at the same time, we should be careful that we don't only see it from a strategic point of view, because you have the timing of the pit stop, which is a strategic element, but then we lost time in pitlane, for instance, which is an execution aspect.

“It is a combination of the driver stop, the pit stop itself. And then we have the in-lap, and we lost some time in the in-lap as well. So, it's should not be confused like a strategic element.

“It is always a team element, and as a team, we have done a great job in making McLaren competitive again for the win.

“And as a team, probably today, we didn't capitalise. But as a team, we shouldn't forget that we were competing with a faster car than us.”

Stella said there was nothing Norris could have done better by way of defence as he left the pitlane.

“I think with the hard tyres, it's very difficult. Even if Lando was ahead of the pit exit, Antonelli is coming with the tyres hot. He's in his ideal racing line. So I don't feel there was anything we could have done.

“We just should have put Lando much more factor ahead, probably seven-tenths of a second, let's say, and this would have given him the possibility to retain the position.

“So I think once we saw that the pit stop wasn't perfect, we lost time in pit lane, like I said before we saw in the in-lap Lando had a couple of moments.

“So we knew the in-lap wasn't going to be very good. We knew that with Antonelli coming with hot tyres, it would have been very difficult. So it's a combination of factors that compound it.”

McLaren "extremely satisfied" despite Miami GP loss

Stella stressed that McLaren had to get everything right and failed to do so.

“I think their car is just a couple of tenths faster than our car,” he said. “So this means that when the things are so close, and when you have four teams in such a tight competition, execution, adaptation, optimisation, they can become the decisive factor.

“And while we have had a very positive weekend, I think today in the race, we might have lost the possibility to win it again, for a matter of execution and optimisation of what was available.

“We were fighting a faster car than us, but perhaps if we had kept Lando the lead, we could have led it to the finish.”

Despite missing the win in the main race, Stella saw positives from an event that included a 1-2 finish in the Saturday sprint, and he’s hoping to see more progress when more upgrades come to the car in Canada.

“We feel extremely satisfied with the weekend, very encouraged,” he said. “Not only because in a single weekend, we scored more points than the three previous races, but also because of the trend that we have established.

“We know that we have some more upgrades coming, which are kind of coming from the same group, so we are optimistic that they may allow us to take some further steps forward.”