McLaren reveals cause of Lando Norris’s stoppage in F1 Monaco GP practice
McLaren reveals what caused Lando Norris to break down in second practice at the Monaco Grand Prix.
McLaren has confirmed that an electrical fault caused Lando Norris’s sudden stoppage during second practice at Formula 1’s Monaco Grand Prix.
Reigning world champion Norris, who won this race last year on his way to claiming a first world title, pulled over and stopped on track with a technical problem early in Friday afternoon’s session at the exit of the Nouvelle Chicane.
McLaren chief technical officer and chief designer Rob Marshall said the issue was electrical.
“Lando's session was unfortunately cut short by an electrical fault which caused the car to shut down,” Marshall said.
“The team is working hard to diagnose the root cause so we can ensure it doesn't happen again and make sure that the focus is on optimising everything for Qualifying."
Norris ended up 19th fastest having failed to set a representative lap time.
It was a tricky day overall for McLaren, with Oscar Piastri only seventh-fastest and well off the pace.
“Tricky day. We're clearly off the pace and need to find time all across the lap. Frustrating to lose track time today, as that's always important here in Monaco. The car simply turned off, so we need to investigate what happened there,” Norris said.
“We'll work hard overnight to try and get more performance out of the car, but realistically it's going to be difficult to compete at the front of the field this weekend based on where we are compared to the competition.
“It’s not necessarily a surprise, but it’s not where we want to be, so we’ll work hard to understand what we’re missing and try to recover where we can for tomorrow.”
McLaren’s struggles came despite bringing a host of upgrades to Monaco in the most aggressive development push of any F1 team.
In total, the reigning world champion squad introduced six updates to its MCL40 challenger, including a radical winglet design on its rear wing to help with airflow and additional downforce.
It marked McLaren’s biggest update package since the Miami Grand Prix in May.
In this article
Lewis regularly attends Grands Prix for Crash.net around the world. Often reporting on the action from the ground, Lewis tells the stories of the people who matter in the sport.
