McLaren team principal Andrea Stella was quick to deny Lando Norris’s race suffered as a result of his slow pit stop on lap 37. Was he right?
Norris had the slowest pit stop of any driver bar Fernando Alonso, though the Aston Martin driver was held for an extra five seconds to serve a time penalty.
Compared to the quickest standard pit stops, Norris lost around two seconds. He rejoined the track immediately behind Charles Leclerc, with Liam Lawson ahead of them.
Shortly before Norris’s pit stop, McLaren urged him to get closer to Yuki Tsunoda in a bid to ‘undercut’ the Red Bull driver by getting onto fresh tyres before him. But after Norris’s slow pit stop, Tsunoda was easily able to pit and rejoin ahead of him.
Would the time Norris lost have made any difference to that? Stella reckoned not. “The pit stop itself didn’t make any difference because we would have ended up pretty much in the area of Leclerc,” he said.
The four cars disputing fifth place were so close at this point that judging what might have happened had Norris had a normal pit stop is open to interpretation. What is clear is that his slow pit stop only needed to be very slightly better for him to rejoin the track close enough to be able to use DRS immediately, and that could have helped him a great deal.
The first DRS detection point at Baku is at the pit lane exit. Norris reached it around 1.2 seconds after Leclerc and therefore could not use DRS on the following straight. With a quicker pit stop he could have been close enough to Leclerc to use DRS, and potentially pass him earlier than he did.
It’s even possible he could have rejoined in front of Leclerc. As the Ferrari driver was within DRS range of Lawson, Norris would have had that benefit.
Of course, had Norris come out immediately in front of another car, he might just as easily have fallen prey to them on the next straight, as happened to Tsunoda when he emerged from the pits ahead of Lawson. But in that case Tsunoda was not able to use DRS himself; had Norris come out between Lawson and Leclerc he would have been able to, and that might have made the difference.
In a best-case scenario for Norris he would have rejoined between Lawson and Leclerc, immediately used his DRS to pass the Racing Bulls car, and then been able to attack Tsunoda without the Red Bull driver having the benefit of DRS. But it’s far from certain this would have happened.
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Moreover, the slow pit stop was only the last in a long line of things which went wrong for Norris over the weekend. There was the questionable qualifying strategy, the error on his Q3 lap, losing positions at the start and restart. Given that, it’s hardly surprising Stella doesn’t want to focus on the pit stop alone.
However it’s also true that this was the second race in a row in which a slow pit stop compromised Norris’s race, and McLaren know they need to get on top of that.
2025 Azerbaijan Grand Prix lap chart
The positions of each driver on every lap. Click name to highlight, right-click to reset. Toggle drivers using controls below:
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2025 Azerbaijan Grand Prix race chart
The gaps between each driver on every lap compared to the leader’s average lap time. Very large gaps omitted. Scroll to zoom, drag to pan and right-click to reset. Toggle drivers using controls below:
2025 Azerbaijan Grand Prix lap times
All the lap times by the drivers (in seconds, very slow laps excluded). Scroll to zoom, drag to pan and toggle drivers using the control below:
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2025 Azerbaijan Grand Prix fastest laps
Each driver’s fastest lap:
2025 Azerbaijan Grand Prix tyre strategies
The tyre strategies for each driver:
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2025 Azerbaijan Grand Prix pit stop times
How long each driver’s pit stops took:
| Rank | # | Driver | Team | Complete stop time (s) | Gap to best (s) | Stop no. | Lap no. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 63 | George Russell | Mercedes | 19.809 | 1 | 39 | |
| 2 | 27 | Nico Hulkenberg | Sauber | 19.97 | 0.161 | 1 | 36 |
| 3 | 44 | Lewis Hamilton | Ferrari | 20.062 | 0.253 | 1 | 36 |
| 4 | 1 | Max Verstappen | Red Bull | 20.221 | 0.412 | 1 | 40 |
| 5 | 30 | Liam Lawson | Racing Bulls | 20.283 | 0.474 | 1 | 20 |
| 6 | 6 | Isack Hadjar | Racing Bulls | 20.294 | 0.485 | 1 | 29 |
| 7 | 22 | Yuki Tsunoda | Red Bull | 20.323 | 0.514 | 1 | 38 |
| 8 | 23 | Alexander Albon | Williams | 20.489 | 0.68 | 2 | 15 |
| 9 | 55 | Carlos Sainz Jnr | Williams | 20.508 | 0.699 | 1 | 27 |
| 10 | 16 | Charles Leclerc | Ferrari | 20.542 | 0.733 | 1 | 19 |
| 11 | 12 | Andrea Kimi Antonelli | Mercedes | 20.669 | 0.86 | 1 | 18 |
| 12 | 31 | Esteban Ocon | Haas | 20.691 | 0.882 | 1 | 1 |
| 13 | 23 | Alexander Albon | Williams | 20.758 | 0.949 | 1 | 1 |
| 14 | 31 | Esteban Ocon | Haas | 20.759 | 0.95 | 2 | 2 |
| 15 | 5 | Gabriel Bortoleto | Sauber | 20.845 | 1.036 | 1 | 26 |
| 16 | 43 | Franco Colapinto | Alpine | 21.088 | 1.279 | 1 | 16 |
| 17 | 87 | Oliver Bearman | Haas | 21.194 | 1.385 | 1 | 28 |
| 18 | 10 | Pierre Gasly | Alpine | 21.5 | 1.691 | 1 | 35 |
| 19 | 18 | Lance Stroll | Aston Martin | 21.82 | 2.011 | 1 | 37 |
| 20 | 4 | Lando Norris | McLaren | 21.975 | 2.166 | 1 | 37 |
| 21 | 14 | Fernando Alonso | Aston Martin | 25.768 | 5.959 | 1 | 21 |
