Lando Norris admitted he was stunned by the pace of Mercedes duo Kimi Antonelli and George Russell during Sunday's Italian Grand Prix at Monza. Despite arriving with renewed confidence after back-to-back wins, McLaren found themselves trailing behind their rivals at the 'Temple of Speed'.
Norris started from third but could only finish fourth, while teammate Oscar Piastri took fifth. Both were around 19 seconds adrift of race winner Kimi Antonelli, who became the first Italian in 60 years to win at Monza. George Russell completed a Mercedes one-two, while Max Verstappen finished third for Red Bull.
"We've seen in past races that the Red Bull can be very fast on these types of circuits, with good top speeds and stuff, and that was again proven," Norris told media including RacingNews365. "They were better than us. But it was clear that Mercedes are still in a league of their own compared to us. You know, we won by bigger margins over the last few races, and they were still fighting for good points at those times. We were not even close to fighting for a top two."
Norris pinpointed McLaren's weakness in slow and medium-speed corners, as well as car stability. "We've seen what our expectations are, and we still have work to do, which we knew. So it's not a surprise. We just need to work on the slow- and medium-speed corners, the stability of the car, which is just not good enough, and some straight-line speed. If we can sort that, then that's a lot of stuff sorted," he added.
During the race, Norris was involved in a battle with Pierre Gasly, which cost him valuable time. "What made or broke my race was just every time I lost time to the guys ahead and didn't have a slipstream, so when I was fighting with Pierre, we lost two seconds, and I lost the gaps to the guys ahead," Norris explained. "I was slowly catching them, but as soon as we were in clean air, we were shocking. Our pace was just dreadful. We needed someone to pull us along, and then we could compete."
Despite the difficulties, Norris felt P4 and P5 were realistic results for McLaren. "It was always a tough position to be in, and sometimes you just had to be a little bit patient. For me, that worked on the final two laps, so I think P4 was the best we could achieve. P4 and P5, for us as a team, were good," he concluded.
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