McLaren secured a one-two finish at the Chinese Grand Prix, but Lando Norris had to battle through a ‘nightmare’ brake issue in the latter stages of the race.
Oscar Piastri took the win in Shanghai for the reigning Constructors’ Champions, with Lando Norris just about holding off George Russell for P2.
The Brit complained about a long brake pedal with around ten laps to go, and the situation continued to worsen as the race neared its conclusion.
During the final few laps, Norris was coaxing his McLaren round the circuit, with engineer Will Joseph informing him that the situation was ‘critical’.
Luckily for the 25 year old, he reached the chequered flag before Russell could catch him, finishing just over a second ahead of the Mercedes.
McLaren unhappy with Lando Norris reliability scare
Despite McLaren claiming a historic 50th 1-2 finish at the Chinese GP, team principal Andrea Stella was very unhappy with the issues experienced by Lando Norris.
Speaking after the race, Stella said: “It is obviously just not acceptable from a reliability point of view.
“Lando and the team did a very good job in being in the loop as to how to adapt the driving style to this kind of problem, which then got worse and worse through the race and put the entire result at risk.
“We have been tense at the pit wall, as I’m sure the entire team and the fans were.
“We need to do better, and this will be one of the points that we will definitely reemphasise to the entire team that have worked at an incredibly high level, we cannot have issues that put these sort of results at risk.”
McLaren now have a clear lead in the constructors’ championship, with a 21 point lead over Mercedes in second place.
Lando Norris continues to lead the championship, extending his points advantage over Max Verstappen to eight points.
Piastri’s dominant win sees him move up to fourth in the table, just 10 points behind his team-mate ahead of the next round in China in two weeks’ time.
