Lando Norris’ costly Q3 crash in Saudi Arabia was the latest ‘episode’ McLaren say is possible to see in its data.

Norris ended up in the barriers at Turn 4 at the start of Q3, having ran wide onto the kerbs and losing control of his MCL39. The British driver is thus set to start the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix from 10th on the grid, while championship rivals Max Verstappen and Oscar Piastri start on the front row.

Andrea Stella: McLaren can see behavioural incidents in the data

With Norris pushing hard to optimise the outright single-lap pace of the McLaren, it was the first hiccup in what has otherwise been a positive weekend for the British driver.

Having spent Friday practice working on adjusting his driving to suit the foibles of the MCL39, Norris had looked to have a tiny edge over Piastri heading into qualifying – only to end up in the wall.

Detailing the events of the crash after the session, McLaren team boss Andrea Stella explained that it’s clear to see in the data when ‘episodes’ occur when the car is being pushed to its limit.

“Lando this weekend was definitely quite competitive – every single session, every set of tyres, he put together good laps, competitive laps,” he told media, including PlanetF1.com.

“In addition to the utilisation of the new tyres, which was very good, he also pulled off some quite impressive race pace. So I think it was all ready for a very strong weekend.

“But I think in Q3, when Lando tries to squeeze a few more milliseconds out of the car, what we see – and I think we are starting to see these even better in the data in terms of identification of what is going on – the car doesn’t respond as he expects.

“So I think this is a behavior that kind of surprises him. Today, it surprised him. The car understeered a bit in Turn 4 and he ended up on the outside kerb, and this outside kerb can be quite unforgiving.

“In a way, it’s almost episodical. What’s happening is an episode, and it’s an episode that I think starts from some of the work that we have done on the car – it made the car faster overall, but I think it took something away from Lando in terms of predictability of the car once he pushes the car at the limit.”

With Piastri not appearing to struggle in quite the same way as Norris, as the Australian followed up on his Bahrain GP victory to be Verstappen’s closest challenger for pole position, Stella said the impetus is on McLaren to rectify the situation for its driver.

“It’s a responsibility of the team to try and improve the car and to try and correct this behaviour,” he said.

“Because we want Lando to be confident and comfortable that he can push the car and, when he needs to find a few milliseconds, he can do it with a behaviour of the car without this sort of macroscopic consequences.

“So I see it as the responsibility of the team in terms of improving the situation.

“What’s important from Lando’s side is that, in the meantime while we don’t improve it, he maintains the confidence and an availability to adapt. These cars are so fast, they are so demanding in terms of just adopting a very natural driving style.

“We hear this even from Lewis Hamilton, seven-times world champion and, yet, he talks about driving the car in a natural way, because these cars are too fast to think.

“You either get what you anticipate from the car, or you’re gonna be slow, and Lando doesn’t accept to be slow. So it’s our responsibility to make sure that we give him a car that is at the level of his talent.”

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Andrea Stella: Exploiting full performance is tricky for McLaren’s drivers

Norris’ chassis was undamaged in the incident, while Stella also explained that the new upgraded items brought along for Saudi Arabia were not fitted to either Norris’ or Piastri’s car after testing the new parts out in practice.

The driver himself, Stella explained, quickly shook off the incident and returned to the team’s debrief already focused on how to bounce back from his setback, saying that the disappointment is serving as “additional determination” to make up for the crash in Sunday’s race.

But such setbacks, he said, are not what he wants to see as the team aims to deliver a car to both drivers that will do what they want at any given moment – whether the car is being driven at 99 or 100 percent.

“Confidence is definitely one of the fundamental elements through which you drive in a very natural way, almost a subconscious way, I would say,” he said.

“But to have this kind of approach from a driver point of view, you almost need to be ahead of the car, because, if you wait for the response of the car, then you’re going to be too late.

“I think he realised that he needed to find a bit of performance in Q3. ‘I push the braking one metre later. I’m one kph faster mid-corner’, and, at some stage, the car does a thing that [the driver is just] not just anticipating, and becomes a passenger, especially at this unforgiving track.

“It’s about getting the car to do what the drivers expect, in particular, Lando.

“The car has a certain envelope of performance, like, that’s what the car can give you.

“But the way you exploit this envelope is a little tricky for our drivers. It’s very easy in that there’s a lot of grip, there’s a lot of grip, [and then] the grip disappears if you go one kph faster, and the grip disappears like this.

“The transition seems to be quite sharp, and the feedback you receive from the car in terms of understanding and leaning on this limit is relatively numb.

“So I think that’s where the drivers almost have to use a lot of guessing as to how the car will behave, and there’s not much information coming from the car. I think that’s what we are struggling a bit from a team point of view, in terms of achieving what we want in designing a car that provides this kind of feedback to drivers and what the drivers may struggle with on their side, because they need to use quite a lot of guessing as to the what the car will be doing.

“This is not a position that myself as a team principal I want to be. We need to do a better job of designing a car that allows the drivers to realise where the limit is, lean on that, and getting good cueing from the car.

“When we push 99 percent, we seem to be having a decent competitiveness, but, when it’s the time to have that final tenth of a second, then it gets pretty tricky to go and materialise it.”

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