For drivers and teams success in Formula 1 is all about learning, and not repeating mistakes or failures.
A classic example occurred at the 2005 European GP at the Nurburgring, when leader Kimi Raikkonen picked up a serious vibration after getting a flat spot.
After a discussion with the McLaren pit wall the Finn opted to stay out, and all was well – until he suffered a spectacular suspension failure at the start of the last lap, and spun out of the race.
The Woking team realised too late that the vibration has tipped things over the edge in terms of what the suspension could take.
As part of its response it introduced a system with a metric that equated the vibration level and the risk of failure, and which set a level beyond which a pit stop for new tyres was essential. That soon became standard practice up and down the pitlane.
Twenty years on the same McLaren team had to react after Lando Norris suffered an oil line issue in Zandvoort.
Given that the Italian GP was fast approaching the engineers wasted little time in coming up with a fix and manufacturing sufficient examples to ensure that both cars can get through the Monza weekend without any concerns of a repeat.
The update comes too late for Norris, who lost a priceless 18-points in the nip and tuck battle with his team mate Oscar Piastri. Andrea Stella was quick to apologise publicly, and he was keen to point out that the team didn’t want to impact so directly the title chances of one or other of its drivers.
To his credit Norris realised even as he sat in his stranded car and reported the failure that it was an occurrence that he couldn’t control. Given that he’s benefited immensely from the team’s usual bulletproof reliability in recent seasons it wasn’t something to lead him to throw his toys out of the pram.
“It’s just something that happens,” he said in Monza on Thursday. “It’s not Andrea’s fault. It’s not Zak’s fault. We look back on, I think it was 60-something races without a technical failure, without any issues. I think that’s a record for ourselves. I don’t know if it’s a record in F1, but it’s something we’re pretty proud about.
“So for that to happen now, that’s just being unlucky. It wasn’t a bad job by anyone. It was just various things coming together, and then just being unlucky.”
The reason that the failure got so much attention was because such high profile mechanical retirements, especially ones that impact a title battle, are so rare these days.
Contrast that with just 20 years ago. Aside from the tyre-induced suspension failure at the Nurburgring Raikkonen also lost wins to a driveshaft failure at Imola, and to a hydraulics issue at Spa. Throw in four 10-place grid penalties caused by practice engine blow-ups and you can pretty soon account for why a man who won seven races lost that year’s title to Renault’s Fernando Alonso.
The world has changed because McLaren and the other teams and PU suppliers have become so good at not leaving anything to chance at the design stage, and then quickly addressing issues if they do occur, usually in the privacy of rig or dyno testing and so on.
McLaren COO Piers Thynne, the man who in effect runs the factory operation, is proud of the way the team responded this week.
“Reliability is an extremely important topic in F1,” he said on Friday. “It was an unfortunate incident when we broke our chain of positive reliability.
“The team has reacted extremely well and extremely pragmatically to look at the issue, find the root cause, understand it, and manufacture parts that are extremely focussed to ensure that it doesn’t happen again.
“I’m extremely pleased with the reaction of the team. And certainly the factory, both design and manufacturing, reacted in a very positive and pragmatic way.”
Firefighting an issue like that is a good test of any organisation, and lessons can always be absorbed on how to respond even more effectively next time.
“F1 is about learning every single day, day shift, night shift, every time we run the car,” said Thynne. “And learning and trialling and improving and improving your process to react positively when things like this happen. It evolves every time.
“I think it’s really important, the human reaction to the problem. It was positive, it was learning, it was collaborative, and shows that our focus is absolutely in the right place.
“What we need to make sure is that we are diligent and focussed to ensure that it doesn’t happen again. But the solution that is here this weekend to prevent it from happening again is the right one.”
Norris is well aware that he’s benefited from that sort of diligence, and he was equally impressed with the subsequent reaction.
“Sixty races or 60-plus I think of zero faults and failures – obviously little, minor things here and there, but nothing which has cost me points or my team mate points – it’s pretty impressive.
“It’s F1, these things happen. There’s a lot of insanely complicated things that have to come together. For them the diagnostic of what happened is pretty easy – it’s the part that’s broken. But the understanding of how to fix it – they made the same part, but stronger.
“The race in F1 is always about making things lighter and stronger. there’s probably a very, very small weight penalty that comes with this part, but it’s a pretty small part.
“It’s probably something that costs a little bit to make, but the team have just done an incredibly good job.”