Unpleasant surprise at Monza: Lando Norris’s gloomy qualifying forecast

The latest Formula 1 showdowns went exactly as champion Lando Norris had hoped. The McLaren star crossed the finish line first in both the Hungarian Grand Prix at the Hungaroring and the Dutch Grand Prix on the dune circuit at Zandvoort, securing his team’s first two Grand Prix victories of the year. At the season-opener in Monza’s Royal Park, however, there was little sign of the good form he had shown in the previous two World Championship rounds.

Although he was the faster of the two McLaren drivers in both free practice sessions on Friday, the gaps to the front-runners were significant. In the first session, he was more than seven-tenths of a second off the fastest time set by Ferrari star Charles Leclerc, eventually finishing sixth. In the second practice session, he reduced the gap to the day’s fastest time set by Mercedes veteran George Russell to 0.384 seconds, putting him fourth on the timesheet.

Afterwards, the Brit revealed that he’d had a nasty surprise: “That didn’t go so well; I’m finding it much harder to get up to speed. To be honest, we were slow in the corners where we’d expected to have good pace. And in the corners where we’d expected to struggle, we weren’t quite as bad. But we’re not quite up to scratch. At the moment, our pace isn’t exactly thrilling.”

Time lost is causing headaches

“It was a lot trickier than the previous Friday practice sessions. Let’s see what we can change and achieve overnight. But our starting position isn’t as good as it has been in recent weekends. So it won’t be a walk in the park. To be honest, we’re a bit short in every area. There isn’t a single corner where we’re faster than any of the cars ahead of us,” Norris explained.

And the 26-year-old analysed: “On the straights we’re losing a bit of time compared to Mercedes, which is what we’d expected. But we’re losing the most time in the high-speed sections, where we’re normally quick. So we need to find something and try a few things out, because at the moment we’re too slow everywhere.”

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His outlook for qualifying was correspondingly bleak: “I’ve no idea what’s possible; the lads at the front are very close to each other in terms of performance. And the lads behind us aren’t far off either. So they could easily spring a surprise on us. I don’t know, but I certainly don’t feel that we’ll be in the mix for pole position. We need to focus on achieving a decent result.”