Norris: McLaren not as good as we look at Monza

Lando Norris does not believe McLaren was as good as its eye-catching practice times for the Italian Grand Prix would have observers believe.

Norris was second quickest in the second session at Monza, just 0.019secs behind Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz, with Oscar Piastri fourth on the timesheet, 0.190s behind the Spanish driver.

Sporting circuit-specific front and rear wings on its MCL60s, Norris and Piastri certainly suggested they would be in the mix come qualifying around the ‘Temple of Speed’.

Norris, however, indicated otherwise. He said: “The only run we looked competitive was the final one, which makes us look very good.

“But I would say we’re not as good as what it looks.”

This weekend sees the return of the ATA (Alternative Tyre Allocation) qualifying format where the hard compound is used in Q1, the medium Pirellis in Q2, and the softs for the top-10 shoot-out.

With reference to how the car felt on each of the compounds, Norris added: “With the medium and the hard we struggled quite a bit more, and also on the race runs we struggled quite a bit more than we do on the one-lap softs.

“It’s the C5 (the softest in Pirelli’s range) so it provides a lot of grip for one lap, which is always a good thing for us. We always need that little extra thing to bring the balance closer toward us.

“It gives us almost what we wish we have from the car itself, but as soon as we lose that extra grip and we go to high fuel, harder tyres, then our performance, relative to others, decreases quite a bit.

“I’m happy, we made improvements, took some good steps forward, but we’re still definitely not in a competitive enough place.”

As to McLaren’s ideas on where to make ground on its rivals, Norris added: “It’s clear where we’re still losing.

“The majority of it is still on the straights compared to the other cars, like the Ferrari, which is unbelievably quick on the straight.

“But I think we always expected them to be quicker here. They have a good balance in the slow-speed corners, they’re always very competitive, and they’re always slippery on the straights.

“I think we have good ideas on what to work on. We took a good step forward between P1 and P2, so maybe a bit more of that, even though it’s not as easy as the step we did, but a bit more in that direction would be helpful.”