Stella says McLaren accepts responsibility for Norris’s straight-line-speed deficit

McLaren team principal Andrea Stella says the team accepts responsibility for a straight-line-speed deficit on Lando Norris’s car that it has not been able to remove over the past couple of events. Stella made the comments after Norris raised the issue again following qualifying at Sepang.

Stella estimated the shortfall at about 1–2 km/h and its lap-time cost at more than a tenth of a second, possibly 0.1–0.2 seconds. He said the car accelerated slightly less and reached a lower top speed in power-limited sections; even a little slipstream from a car four seconds ahead could make the difference harder to see.

The qualifying comparison with teammate Oscar Piastri was mixed: Norris was 0.308 seconds behind him in Azerbaijan, then 0.005 seconds ahead at Sepang. Those are whole-lap margins, not an isolated measure of straight-line speed.

Stella said McLaren was still investigating the cause and was not attributing the shortfall to the power unit. Other parameters, power-unit behaviour linked to the chassis, or drag could be involved, he said.

After the Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia, Norris told Sky Sports F1 he was losing almost two-tenths per lap. He also said he could have done better and that the team could improve too.

Stella said McLaren would look at further changes for Singapore.