McLaren’s Lando Norris set the pace in Friday’s second practice session at the Italian Grand Prix, but the British driver concluded his day feeling uneasy about the razor-thin margins separating him from his closest rivals.
Clocking a lap time of 1m 19.878s, Norris edged out Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz by less than a tenth of a second, with teammate Oscar Piastri close behind in fourth.
After Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton led a 1-2 for the Scuderia in FP1, McLaren responded in the afternoon with Norris setting the benchmark. However, the tight gaps to Leclerc, Sainz, and Piastri underscored the intense competition at the front of the field.
Reflecting on his performance, Norris was frank about his desire for a more comfortable advantage.
“Normally by this point we have like a one-second gap on everyone! But at the moment it looks just a bit close for my liking at the minute,” he said.
“Not bad, I feel like there’s some small things to improve for us to still be P1. I thought it was good that we improved some stuff from FP1 to FP2. It’s just a bit close, so I just need to try and make the gap a bit bigger so a little bit more comfortable.”
©McLaren
While McLaren looked like the team to beat at the high-downforce Zandvoort circuit last weekend, Norris admitted Monza’s radically different demands are bringing rivals back into the fight.
McLaren Struggles in Low-Downforce Trim
On the soft tyres in FP2, Norris admitted his MCL39 didn’t feel quite as sharp as it had at Zandvoort, where McLaren dominated.
“Still trickier than what I would like. This is the complete opposite downforce level to Zandvoort, [in] Zandvoort where we were just easily quickest and it felt pretty amazing,” he explained.
“Here’s quite the opposite, so [it’s] not a surprise. It’s probably what we were expecting, that kind of thing, but I definitely think we don’t perform quite to the same level in these kind of low downforce conditions as we do when we’re at a high downforce.
“The competitors catch up, it looks a bit closer and it makes our life a bit trickier, but I think we’re still in a reasonable place. Some small things to improve, and we’ll be a bit better.”
A Tight Weekend Ahead
With Ferrari pushing hard in front of the Tifosi, Mercedes and Red Bull having yet to deliver, and Williams quietly in the mix, Norris knows the margins will be fine this weekend.
While McLaren’s form remains strong, the gap is nothing like the dominance he enjoyed just one week ago.
Saturday’s qualifying at Monza promises to be fiercely competitive – and Norris is already eyeing the improvements needed to keep McLaren ahead of the pack.
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