Norris reveals confidence drop as McLaren woes continue in Monaco
Photo: Race Pictures
08:00, 07 Jun
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Savannah Lenz is a Formula 1 journalist at GPblog with a broad interest in motorsport. With experience in content creation and journalism, she delivers accessible and reliable coverage for a global F1 audience.
Lando Norris will start the Monaco Grand Prix from the fourth row. After the session, the Briton revealed a lack of confidence and various issues that plagued his qualifying.
The current world champion and last year’s winner of the Monaco GP will start tomorrow’s race in P8. Speaking to GPblog, among others, he said, “I'm the one driving the car, so I can tell the difficulty of extracting lap time. How difficult it was already last weekend in Montreal; that's why I was so surprised last weekend to be as competitive as we were. Coming here as well, quite an eye-opener. But it's still a slight reality check of how far off we are. When you look at where we've been good, it's still not been crazy slow-speed tracks like Suzuka and Miami.
“After Montreal and into Montreal, my expectations weren’t too high. And I think if you ask me, coming into Monaco, I think I said it probably last weekend. I didn't have high hopes for this weekend. The car is just very difficult to drive, not very compliant, not very forgiving in any way. So, my confidence level last year was 100; now it's 85. And around Monaco, you know, you needed to be at 100. “
At the Canadian GP and ahead of this race week, Norris was adamant that McLaren would be behind. However, he thought the team to beat would be Ferrari. While McLaren is two rows behind the Italian outfit, it was Mercedes that took pole position once again.
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Multiple issues for Norris and the MCL40
When describing his qualifying, Norris said, “We're missing time in every sector, honestly. It's just grip, it's just load, it's grip, it's nothing more than that. There's a balance aspect to it, too. But it's nothing to do with sectors. It's just that sector one probably has the fewest corners, so it's less lap time.
“We got the tyres to work in the end. We were struggling yesterday. I think we got it in a better window, but when you have less grip and less downforce, it's a bigger struggle to get everything to work. So maybe comparing to others, yes. But the big thing is we just turn off the grip, turn off the load, the car doesn't perform as well as it needs to, and it's as simple as that.”
Photo: Race Pictures
During the previous sessions of the weekend, many cars had issues with grip, lockups, and sliding. When asked if that was an issue, he responded, “Potentially, it's not like the guys at the front; the car's just pinned and easy; they're still sliding and hustling. We're at a lower level of that. You're always trying to push the car to the limit in every aspect. It's just our limits here, and the others are slightly above; it's as simple as that.
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“We struggle with some attributes, whether it's with front locking and the front of the car just not working very well, but this is a car thing, not a tyre thing or a combination. And this is something we have to work on.”
Norris’ teammate, Oscar Piastri, will also start the Monaco GP from the fourth row back after qualifying one position ahead of Norris in P7. However, Norris does believe some improvement can be made.
"Not a lot more. You're still flat out for most of it, but you're still looking at the dash, trying to get the recharge off at the right time and get the turbo in the right point, get the battery in the right point. It's just stuff we shouldn't be looking at and trying to figure out. There's still going to be a crash at some point because someone's just looking at their dash trying to figure stuff out. I'm still not a fan. It is what it is."
Despite having issues, the McLaren driver added, "At the same time, it was way better; therefore, I'm happy. I think what you see today is probably the most pure qualifying laps you've seen all year.
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"People are just pushing; they're not thinking about things. You're still thinking about turbo and all this nonsense, but it's all just doing a quality lap. You're thinking about how I can get as close to the wall, how I can do all of this, and whether I need to get on the throttle later to save the battery for later. It's still pretty easily the best qualifying lap of the year."
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Monaco Grand Prix
Overview
Friday 05.06.26
Practice 1
11:30 AM
Practice 2
03:00 PM
Saturday 06.06.26
Practice 3
10:30 AM
Qualification
02:00 PM
Sunday 07.06.26
Race
01:00 PM
Friday 05.06.26
Practice 1
Fri 11:30 AM
Practice 2
Fri 03:00 PM
Saturday 06.06.26
Practice 3
Sat 10:30 AM
Qualification
Sat 02:00 PM
Sunday 07.06.26
Race
Sun 01:00 PM
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Season
| Pos. | Driver | Team | Points |
|---|---|---|---|
1 | MercedesMER | 131 | |
2 | MercedesMER | 88 | |
3 | FerrariFER | 75 | |
4 | FerrariFER | 72 | |
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