Verstappen and co. in with a chance? Norris: 'It's closer than what I'd like'

Reacting to how his Friday overall went, upon completion of FP2, Norris reacted with caution due to the close proximity of his pursuers with Charles Leclerc's Ferrari and Carlos Sainz's Williams within a tenth of his P1 time.

Regarding his soft tyre run, and about how easily he found it to extract the performance from his MCL39, Norris wasn't much more optimistic.

According to Norris, McLaren had already predicted this would be the case, aluding to an expected deficit in terms of performance in low downforce tracks, opening up the door for a non-McLaren win at Monza.

"The competitors catch up, it looks a bit closer and that makes our life a bit trickier. But I think we're still in a reasonable place, so some small things to improve and we'll be a bit better," added Norris, though, still confident McLaren can eek out a gap on their rivals.

Regarding his long-run pace, whcih according to Formula One data was the strongest by 2 tenths ahead of Max Verstappen's and four ahead of Carlos Sainz, he had a positive outlook on it, at least compared to last year's when the win was missed due to a daring Ferrari one-stop strategy and a brilliant drive by Charles Leclerc.

"I don't know how hard the pace was but I feel like it's a bit better than it was last year, but, that's when I had clean air for the whole run," added Norris with a bit of caution, aware of the effects trailing another car have on the current F1 cars.

"So when you're in dirty air and things, it can still easily be a two-stop," he concluded, revealing that a one-stop this year could still be an option, but track position will be pivotal in terms of achieving it. Pole position then is the target for Norris ahead of Saturday's qualifying session.