McLaren fuel miscalculation forces Norris to defend hard for British GP sprint podium

Lando Norris secured third place in the British Grand Prix sprint at Silverstone on Saturday, but a fuel calculation error by McLaren turned a comfortable podium finish into a tense late battle with George Russell’s Mercedes.

Norris had made a strong start from sixth on the grid, emerging from a three-way fight with Russell and Max Verstappen to build a healthy gap in the middle stages of the 17-lap race. However, as the sprint entered its final laps, the McLaren pit wall instructed him to manage fuel consumption — handing Russell the opportunity to close back in.

The reigning world champion held on, but made his frustration clear over team radio, urging McLaren to “get it right for once.”

Team principal Andrea Stella acknowledged the error and confirmed it was not a deliberate underfuelling strategy but a failure in consumption prediction. “We needed to compromise the pace a bit because we were managing fuel and Lando gave us a good reminder,” Stella said. “We need to do better because it’s the second time in a row that we asked the driver to manage fuel. This is not good enough. But Lando compensated for that in a brilliant way.”

Stella attributed the miscalculation to the added complexity of this season’s power unit regulations, which introduce greater energy management variables that make baseline fuel consumption harder to model accurately. “You have a yo-yo effect, which obviously moves data from what you think is the baseline,” he explained. “Interesting in all respects, but definitely a situation that you would like to avoid because it takes a few tenths off the gap.”

Despite the late drama, third place represented an encouraging result for McLaren on a weekend the team had expected to struggle. Norris and Oscar Piastri had qualified sixth and seventh respectively, with the MCL40 considered less aerodynamically efficient than the Mercedes and Ferrari at Silverstone.

The pace of race leaders Kimi Antonelli and Lewis Hamilton, however, highlighted the gap McLaren still needs to close at the front. “If we look at Hamilton and Antonelli, they are still decently faster than us. So we know we have work to do,” Stella said. “But considering that we started this weekend a little bit on the back foot in practice, we found some performance in sprint qualifying and it looks like we have found some further performance into the sprint. We now need to keep improving the car.”