Norris claims McLaren ‘not in the fight for pole at all’ after Monza practice struggles

Lando Norris cut a downbeat figure after Friday practice at the Autodromo Nazionale Monza, claiming that McLaren are “not in the fight for pole at all” as things stand.

Norris ended the first day of action in Italy in fourth position, behind Mercedes pair George Russell and Kimi Antonelli and Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc – lapping 0.384 seconds off the pace.

Summing up his two sessions behind the wheel, Norris commented: “Not very decent. Just struggling a lot more with pace.

“To be honest, in the corners we expected to be good at, we’re bad at. And the corners we expected to be bad at, we’re not so bad at. But we’re still off. Not in a great place at the minute.

“We’ll see what we can do overnight, but it’s going to be tougher than before, for sure.”

Norris was alluding to his pole position and victory doubles at the high-downforce Hungaroring and Zandvoort circuits – very different layouts to the low-downforce Monza track.

Asked what he might be able to achieve with some positive car changes overnight, Norris added: “I have no idea. It’s close between a lot of the guys at the top. The guys behind are not that far behind either, so they can easily surprise us.

“I don’t know. I definitely don’t feel we’re in the fight for pole at all. We just need to focus on getting a decent result, that’s all.”

Neil Houldey, McLaren’s Technical Director of Applied Engineering, shared similar comments to Norris post-FP2, explaining that while he is “sure we’ll be a little bit closer” come Qualifying, fighting for pole “will certainly be tricky this weekend”.

There was a standout positive for McLaren on Friday, however, as the team successfully ran a series of new parts on their MCL40 – including the rotating rear wing that they have called the ‘H-Wing’.

“The H-Wing worked exactly as we intended,” said Houldey. “Aerodynamically here it looks good. Mechanically, really pleased that it looks good as well. We’ve got a bit more inspection to do, but we expect to carry that forward for the rest of the weekend, which will add performance.

“Overall, four tenths down… it’s a little bit to make up. I think we’ve got good balance between the high-speed and the low-speed [corners].

“Still work to do on how we maximise energy. It’s always a challenge around here, and I think there’s still opportunity there to find a little bit more harvest, a little more deployment, to get some lap time that way. A little bit from the drivers [as well].

“It’d have been nicer to be slightly higher up the timesheet in terms of [being] closer to the front, but we’re there or thereabouts, and I’m sure we’ll put a little bit of performance on the car before tomorrow.”