How did Verstappen know about Norris’ slow stop in Italy? – F1 Q&A

Red Bull’s Max Verstappen converted pole to a race win at the Italian Grand Prix.

McLaren’s Oscar Piastri was given team orders to let Lando Norris past for second, late in the race, after a slot pit stop for the Briton..

Piastri leads the championship by 31 points from team-mate Norris.

Thinking about the battle between the McLaren drivers for the championship, to what extent does a driver have their own team in F1? To what extent are there people working solely to help Norris or Piastri win, rather than just to maximise McLaren’s points? – Danielle

The easiest way to think about it is that Formula 1 teams are split into two parts that work to the same management. The drivers are competing with each other, but in the interests of the team.

So, in McLaren’s case, Norris and Piastri have their own sides of the garage for their cars. On each side, there is a team of mechanics and engineers working on their car.

Norris has his own race engineer and performance engineer, so does Piastri. Each driver is free to choose their own set-up to fine-tune their car.

Beyond the individual car set-up – suspension settings, level of downforce and so forth – fundamentally, both cars are in the same specification.

The exception to that at McLaren is that the team came up with a special suspension part earlier this season to help Norris deal with what he was feeling as a numbness from the front axle.

This change was aimed at giving him more feel through the steering wheel. He adopted it in Canada. It was available to both drivers, but Piastri has chosen not to use it.

That’s because it was not a performance part per se. It did not give the car more speed of itself, although it might have allowed Norris to access more speed from the car himself.

That, though, is quite an unusual situation.

That’s where individualism stops, out of the car. Debriefs about the sessions are collective, including both drivers. Race strategy is planned collectively – although the drivers in this case are free to deviate from the plan if it better suits their race against each other, as was seen in Hungary.

How did Verstappen know about Norris’ slow stop? Was there a radio message we didn’t hear or did he just work it out from his engineer saying him and Piastri were swapping places? Is he any more observant than any other driver on the grid, do you think? – Harvey

This is a reference to the radio exchange between Verstappen and his engineer Gianpiero Lambiase in which Lambiase told him Norris and Piastri had swapped positions. Verstappen replied: “Ha! Because he had a slow stop?”

Red Bull say Verstappen was not told about the swap, and that he would have seen it on the giant television screens around the track.

It’s not unusual for F1 drivers to notice these things. Having said that, Verstappen is definitely one of the more observant drivers. It’s an example of how much spare capacity he has in the car.

It’s a characteristic that marks out all the greats.

The absolutely best drivers have to use less of their total brain capacity to drive the car to the limit. That gives them plenty of mental space to think about other things.

Interesting to see Charles Leclerc sitting in the dunes at Zandvoort after his crash, checking his phone. Does that mean he and other F1 drivers take their mobile phone into their race car? – Jan

No, Formula 1 drivers do not take their smartphones into the car with them!

In Zandvoort, the layout of the circuit meant that Leclerc could not get back to the paddock without going past a grandstand full of fans. He thought that was probably not a good idea, so he stayed where he was until he could get a lift back from a motorcycle.

Is Yuki Tsunoda out of a race seat next season? His only hope appears to be reserve with Aston Martin when they become a Honda works team. – Nick

Tsunoda is not out of a seat yet, but the clock is certainly ticking.

After the Italian Grand Prix, Red Bull team principal Laurent Mekies was keen not to criticise Tsunoda too much, pointing out that he was in traffic and then had damage to his floor after a clash with Liam Lawson.

But Mekies did acknowledge that “it’s fair to say we have more work to do on race pace than qualifying pace with Yuki”. And that’s after Tsunoda qualified 10th, 0.727 seconds slower than team-mate Verstappen, who was on pole.

Tsunoda did not have the new floor available to Verstappen, but that does not explain the huge gap.

So, not exactly a ringing endorsement.

Mekies said after the Dutch Grand Prix that Red Bull were going to take their time making the decision, as there was no need to rush it.

But it’s very clear that Tsunoda is running out of time to make his case to be retained next year. And it looks like Isack Hadjar is in prime spot to be promoted to that seat from Racing Bulls.

On another Red Bull-related topic, it’s notable that, after a very difficult couple of races in Belgium and Hungary, Red Bull appear to be making progress in understanding their car.

Verstappen was second in the Netherlands – an on-merit third, if you factor in Norris’ retirement – and now he has won at Monza.

An upturn in performance was expected because of the circuit characteristics, but not to this extent.

And it has not gone unnoticed that this upturn has coincided with Mekies getting his feet under the table.

In Italy, Verstappen had positive things to say about his new boss.

“Up until now we’ve had a lot of races where we were just shooting left and right a little bit with the set-up of the car. Quite extreme changes, which shows that we were not in control,” Verstappen said.

“We were not fully understanding what to do. With Laurent having an engineering background, he’s asking the right questions to the engineers – common-sense questions – so I think that works really well.”

Mekies himself said: “My only role is to make sure the talent we have are put in the right positions to express their talents. We want to get to the maximum possible understanding of what has limited the project this year.”

Red Bull had a new floor in Monza, and, unlike last year, they had designed specific low-downforce wing for the track.