Andrea Stella explains rare McLaren double-DNS in Chinese GP
The screens were up at the McLaren garages
McLaren has revealed that two separate electrical failures on its Mercedes power units left both Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri stranded in the garage at the start of the Chinese Grand Prix.
It marked the first DNS of Norris’ Formula 1 career, while for Piastri it was his second in a row after he crashed on his recon lap out of the pits at the Australian Grand Prix.
McLaren explain double electrical power unit failure behind Chinese Grand Prix DNS
Want more PlanetF1.com coverage? Add us as a preferred source on Google for news you can trust.
McLaren’s start to the season hit an all-time low on Sunday in Shanghai when neither MCL40 took its place on the grid.
Norris was in trouble already when McLaren tried to fire up his car and the team discovered a problem on the electrical side of the power unit.
While his mechanics worked with Mercedes HPP in a fruitless attempt to resolve the issue, Piastri completed his recon laps and took his place on the grid.
However, minutes before the formation lap was set to begin, McLaren discovered a separate issue on the electrical side of the number 81 car’s power unit. Despite efforts to fix it, Piastri’s car was pushed back to the garage, where it remained.
More from the Chinese Grand Prix on PlanetF1
McLaren suffers double Chinese GP DNS after late Norris, Piastri problems
Kimi Antonelli wins Chinese Grand Prix after McLaren double DNS chaos
Stella explained how the events unfolded with McLaren fitting a new ECU in Norris’ car, but even that didn’t fix the problem.
“A disappointing day, quite frustrating, because we go racing to be on track, and today we saw two McLarens in the garage while the other cars were racing,” he told the media in Shanghai.
“What happened today is that on Lando’s car, in preparation for the laps to the grid, we saw that there were problems with the electrical side of the power unit. We couldn’t communicate with this component.
“We tried to rectify the problem. We tried to change as many parts as possible without having to change that part specifically, because it would take a long time, and we couldn’t have made it to the start of the race.
“We reprogrammed but there was no way to fix the problem, and Lando’s car was simply just not being conditioned to leave the garage.
“On Oscar’s side, the car was able to go to the grid with no issues at all. But once on the grid, the car wouldn’t fire up again in a similar manner to Lando.
“But actually on Oscar side, it was easier to diagnose the problem, and it appears to be a problem with the same power unit component on the electrical side, but a problem of a different nature.
“So it’s quite exceptional and uncharacteristic that you have two terminal problems pretty much at the same time on the same component, which in this case is on the electrical side of the power unit.”
Worryingly for McLaren, neither the Woking team nor Mercedes HPP was able to pinpoint the cause of the problem. So far, though, it has only been a superficial look with more in-depth inspections to come.
“So at the moment, these issues are understood in terms of what the problem is, but they are not fully understood in terms of the root cause,” he said.
“This will require inspection, physical inspection, because, from the data we had available, or from a superficial external inspection, there’s nothing that is pointing at a specific, more detailed, let me say, road course, compared to generically, saying that the problem is in a certain area.”
Pressed on whether the root cause could be the same thing, Stella said that’s one for Mercedes HPP.
“Obviously this is an area of the car which is not under McLaren’s control,” he explained. “So we rely entirely on what is reported by HPP, and we trust completely their report.
“And according to their report at the moment, the two problems are of a different nature. It looks like it’s just coincidence that they happened at the same time, at the same grand prix, and they were both of a terminal nature.”
As to whether the problem could be coming from McLaren’s side and not Mercedes HPP, the Italian was open to the possibility.
“At the moment it doesn’t look like that is the case,” Stella insisted, “but like I say, we have gone only that far in terms of being able to diagnose any parts.
“Once we go a little bit deeper, we will able to we will be able to have a more comprehensive assessment and see if there’s anything that was actually on the McLaren side.”
Want to be the first to know exclusive information from the F1 paddock? Join our broadcast channel on WhatsApp to get the scoop on the latest developments from our team of accredited journalists.
You can also subscribe to the PlanetF1 YouTube channel for exclusive features, hear from our paddock journalists with stories from the heart of Formula 1 and much more!
Read next: Lando Norris reveals issue behind McLaren DNS disaster in China
