Lando Norris’ bid for a hat-trick of Formula 1 victories this weekend at Monza suffered an early setback on Friday, with McLaren ending the opening day looking decidedly short of the pace needed to challenge Mercedes and Ferrari.
Fresh from triumphs in Hungary and the Netherlands, Norris found himself trailing the leading Mercedes and Ferrari machinery throughout the opening day of running, ending FP2 fourth and 0.384 seconds adrift of George Russell.
More troublingly, McLaren’s pace appeared to be lacking in areas where the team had expected its MCL40 to shine.
McLaren searching for answers
Norris did little to disguise his frustration after the second session, admitting that the car was proving considerably less competitive than anticipated.
"Not very decent, just struggling a lot more with pace," commented the Briton.
"To be honest, in the corners we expected to be good at, we're bad. And the corners we expected to be bad at, we're not so bad at, but we're still off. So, we're not in a great place at the minute. We'll see what we can do overnight."
The numbers offered little comfort. Norris and team-mate Oscar Piastri, who finished sixth, appeared to be giving away substantial time on Monza’s long straights compared with Russell’s Mercedes, pointing towards a combination of aerodynamic efficiency and energy deployment as possible culprits.
Even more surprisingly, Norris was losing ground through the fast Ascari chicane, traditionally the sort of flowing corner where McLaren’s strengths should have come to the fore.
The team was comparatively stronger through Monza’s slower chicanes – hardly an ideal trade-off at the Temple of Speed.
Hat-trick hopes take a hit
With Ferrari also showing encouraging pace thanks to its upgraded power unit and Monza-specific aerodynamic package, Norris knows the fight at the sharp end is unlikely to be a repeat of the domination McLaren enjoyed at some earlier rounds.
"It's going to be tougher than before, for sure," he acknowledged, as he aims to extend his winning run.
"It's close between a lot of the guys at the top. The guys behind are not that far behind either, so they can easily surprise us.
"I definitely don't feel we're in the fight for pole at all. But we just need to focus on getting a decent result."
McLaren does at least have avenues to explore overnight. Its new H-Wing, the team’s take on the rotating rear-wing concept pioneered by Ferrari, performed as expected, while technical director Neil Houldey conceded that the MCL40 remained around three-tenths shy of its desired level.
"We're reasonably pleased with the car's balance between high-and low-speed sections, though we are around three-tenths off where we want to be," Houldey said.
"The new H-Wing performed well, as we expected following the testing put in at the factory, and we now anticipate it to add performance as we head into the rest of the weekend.
Read also: McLaren unleashes new H-Wing as Monza hat-trick beckons"Our focus this evening will be on fine-tuning the energy management, as there is still an opportunity to find lap time through better harvesting and deployment. It’s about finding those last few fractions of a second to close the gap with the teams ahead."
For Norris, however, the message from Friday was unmistakable: the road to a Monza hat-trick currently looks considerably steeper than expected.
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