01/09/2025 10:10
McLaren has taken responsibility for Lando Norris' retirement from
the Dutch Grand Prix, absolving power unit supplier Mercedes of any
blame. Team principal Andrea Stella explained late on Sunday
evening that the Woking-based squad had "identified an issue on the
chassis side" of the British driver's MCL39. The terminal problem
on Norris' car had initially appeared to be power unit-related, an
educated assumption predicated on various factors. In addition to
Norris telling his engineer, Will Joseph, over team radio that he
thought there was smoke coming into his cockpit mere moments before
the engine "just shut off", Mercedes has suffered numerous power
unit issues across its own team and its customers this season, with
McLaren fortunate to avoid being affected. However, that
expectation was before Stella's revelation, which provides the most
concrete indication yet that it was a rare fault with the McLaren
itself. "We've identified an issue on the chassis side, and we will
do a full review before we go racing again in Monza," the Italian
said. "This is the first technical problem for the team after a
long run of faultless reliability." Removing reliability as a
'factor' in the drivers' title fight The 54-year-old had been
deliberately indeterminate in the immediate wake of the incident,
avoiding apportioning blame in his post-race media session.
"Reliability has been a strong point at McLaren for a long time,"
Stella told the media, including RacingNews365 . "We have had what
looks like a technical reliability problem, which is always
disappointing. "The whole team will process this, try to take the
learning, reviewing the problem, fixing it, and making sure that
this is not a factor anymore for the future, not only for the
remainder of the championship, even if, obviously, this is the main
focus for the moment." The reliability failure could prove critical
in the intra-McLaren championship battle between Norris and
Piastri. Whilst the 25-year-old was set to drop seven points in the
title hunt to the Australian - falling from nine to 16 points back
- before his retirement, he now finds himself staring down the
barrel of a 34-point deficit with nine rounds remaining. When
further questioned on the incident in the initial aftermath, Stella
added: "We have some initial indications based on the data. But, in
fairness, we don't have full proof of what has happened to Lando's
car. "So I would refrain from making any speculation about is it a
problem on the chassis side or is it a problem on the engine side.
"In fairness, it doesn't make, in terms of the result, a big
difference. Even in how this is perceived, let me say, I want to
take the opportunity to remind ourselves that we just see chassis,
engine - it's one single team. "So, we will see technically where
the problem is, we will fix it, and we will go again."
