Norris feels “uncomfortable in his car” despite encouraging pace

The now two-time F1 race winner Lando Norris insists that he did not feel completely comfortable in his car despite ending both sessions at the sharp end of the field.

Having arrived at Monza after his utterly dominant Zandvoort victory, Lando Norris looked fast in FP2, setting his two qualifying simulation laps before the red flags came out to interrupt proceedings.

Interestingly, the British racer was not fully encouraged by the balance of his car, stressing that McLaren will need to fine-tune his car in the final practice.

"An okay first day on track today. FP1 wasn’t great as I felt a bit uncomfortable with the car. FP2 was better but we’ve got to make some progress overnight ahead of Quali tomorrow. I’ve got some areas to focus on with my driving in FP3, but we’ve got a good starting point to work from as a team."

His team-mate Oscar Piastri took sixth and fourth in the first and second practice respectively. However, he could have ended the FP2 atop, but he made a crucial mistake on his quickest hot lap.

"We had a decent Friday, I think the pace looks pretty solid. It’s going to be very difficult on the tyres for everybody, so we’ll work hard to make sure we’re ready to maximise our performance, and we’ll see what happens on race day.

“I think it’s going to be a pretty interesting race compared to what we might normally have in Monza,” concluded Piastri.

McLaren team boss Andrea Stella stressed that margins will be extremely tight in qualifying, with the usual four fastest teams set to be separated by the tiniest of margins.

"Both sessions today were pretty busy. We had a lot of work to do to acquire data, and confirm our aerodynamic upgrades. We also worked to understand the tyres on this new tarmac, which seemed to show that they behave differently when compared to the past.

“As usual in Monza, we were also trying to nail the set-up for the long straights while also saving some grip in the corners. This year it looks like the tarmac is a lot smoother, which offers some opportunities from a set-up point of view. We have plenty of work to do, but overall, it was a positive couple of sessions.

“We’ll review all of this data and prepare for the remainder of the weekend, which looks very, very tight from a competitiveness point of view, with the usual four teams in condition to fight for the podium."