McLaren is scrambling to get Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri at the start of the Chinese Grand Prix, with the world champion and his team-mate set for a pitlane start if the team can solve the issues in time.
Norris qualified sixth on Saturday but was not able to take up his grid slot during the pre-race procedure before the pitlane exit had closed.
McLaren had to take off the floor of the reigning world champion’s car to find the root cause of the issue and continued working in the garage as the time keeps ticking towards 3pm local time, the start of the formation lap.
Less than 10 minutes before the start, McLaren also had to wheel Piastri back to the garage with an undisclosed problem, meaning both McLaren cars risk not making the start if the team can’t thrash out a quick fix.
If McLaren is able to get either driver into the race, they will be forced to start from the pitlane. It’s the second consecutive pre-race drama for McLaren after Oscar Piastri crashed out of his home race in Melbourne on the reconnaissance laps to the grid.
Audi’s Gabriel Bortoleto also hit trouble after he had already made it onto the starting grid. The Brazilian’s car weas pushed back to the garage by his mechanics some 15 minutes before the start of the race.
At last week’s Australian GP, Bortoleto’s team-mate Nico Hulkenberg didn’t make the start after being struck by a pre-race car problem.
Mercedes’ Kimi Antonelli will lead the field from pole as F1’s youngest-ever polesitter, followed by George Russell and the two Ferraris of Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc, with Norris’s McLaren-team-mate Piastri fifth.
Any pitlane starters will line up behind Williams’s Alex Albon, whose car was taken out of parc ferme after a disappointing qualifying session left him down in 18th. Williams opted to make set-up changes to fix serious balance issues on Albon’s FW47.
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– The Autosport.com Team
