Norris jokes: "Best lap of my life today"

Lando Norris had a good feeling about the first day in Monza. McLaren hopes to achieve a good result at the Italian Grand Prix and Norris feels the team is well on its way, although he does not want to get his hopes up too much.

"Best lap of my life today," Norris laughed in conversation with Formula1.com. "I think, we showed good pace at times, made some good steps from FP1 to FP2; we changed quite a lot of stuff on the car. I don’t want to get our hopes up, I think we’re still quite a way off from where Alpine are, but on the long run we are quite a chunk off."

Norris was good for a sixteenth place in the first free practice, but he did himself a good turn a few hours later. He finished fourth with a time of 1:22:338, holding off both Mercedes drivers.

Max Verstappen was less than happy with Norris during the first session. The reigning world champion felt that Norris was getting in his way quite a bit, preventing him from completing his fast lap and forcing him to settle for a fifth place finish.