Norris admits rivals ‘a bit close for my liking’ despite topping FP2 at Monza

Lando Norris expressed concerns about the small gap back to his rivals after Friday’s track action at the Italian Grand Prix, with the Briton setting the pace in Free Practice 2 by less than one-tenth from Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz.

While Lewis Hamilton headed a Ferrari 1-2 during the day’s opening practice hour in front of the Tifosi at Monza, McLaren looked in strong form during the second session as Norris led the way on a lap of 1m 19.878s.

However, with Leclerc and Sainz sandwiched between Norris and the other papaya car of Oscar Piastri, the pacesetter admitted after FP2 that he was hoping to extend the gap as the weekend progresses in order to keep the team’s competitors at bay.

Pushed on whether he was pleased with how his session went, Norris answered: “Ish. Normally by this point we have like a one-second gap on everyone! But at the moment it looks just a bit close for my liking at the minute.

“Not bad, I feel like there’s some small things to improve for us to still be P1. I thought it was good that we improved some stuff from FP1 to FP2. It’s just a bit close, so I just need to try and make the gap a bit bigger so a little bit more comfortable.”

In terms of how the car felt on the soft tyre when trying to extract performance, the 25-year-old explained: “Still trickier than what I would like. This is the complete opposite downforce level to Zandvoort, [in] Zandvoort where we were just easily quickest and it felt pretty amazing.

“Here’s quite the opposite, so [it’s] not a surprise. It’s probably what we were expecting, that kind of thing, but I definitely think we don’t perform quite to the same level in these kind of low downforce conditions as we do when we’re at a high downforce.

“The competitors catch up, it looks a bit closer and it makes our life a bit trickier, but I think we’re still in a reasonable place. Some small things to improve, and we’ll be a bit better.”

On the other side of the garage, Piastri returned to action after handing his car over to rookie Alex Dunne during FP1.

Following a red flag in FP2 owing to Kimi Antonelli’s Mercedes becoming beached in the gravel, the Australian found himself under investigation for entering the fast lane of the pit lane before a restart time was confirmed, an incident that he was later handed a reprimand for.

“I think we just misjudged the… we got confused with the messaging from the timing system and went a little bit early, but that’s all,” he said of the incident after the session.

This aside, the championship leader was left satisfied with his running, having commented at the end of Friday: “Today’s been a good day. Obviously not doing FP1, I had a bit of catching up to do in FP2, but I feel like I hit the ground running and the car felt pretty good.

“Just got the set-up maybe a little bit wrong on the soft [tyre] and the second lap was pretty decent, considering it was a second lap on the tyre. I’m feeling pretty good, I just need to tweak a little bit more tomorrow and find a little bit more pace.”

When quizzed on whether he was surprised by the fine margins at the top of the timesheets, Piastri responded: “A little bit, yes. I think it was also who was in the mix that was a bit of a surprise.

“The Williams have looked strong in both sessions now, so let’s see if they’re still there tomorrow but, yeah, I think it’s going to be a close weekend.”