The world champion acknowledges that the MCL40 does not work on the Italian circuit. The high speed corners, where they expected to be strong, are their weak point. The new rotating rear wing works, but it will not be enough to fight for first position.
Lando Norris could not hide his disappointment at the end of the first day of practice at Monza. The Formula 1 world champion, who arrived in Italy with two consecutive victories, found a very different reality at the Temple of Speed: "Not very decent, we are having a lot of difficulties with pace" declared the Briton at the end of FP2.
Norris's analysis was blunt: "To be honest, in the corners where we expected to be good, we are bad and in the corners where we expected to be bad, we are not so bad but we are still behind. We are not in a good place right now" he explained. The McLaren driver, who had achieved pole and victory in Hungary and Zandvoort, two high downforce circuits, finds himself with a radically different scenario at Monza, where low downforce and top speed are kings.
Norris went even further in assessing his chances for qualifying: "I have no idea about the real chances I have, it's very tight between many of the guys at the top. The ones coming from behind are not that far off so they can easily surprise us. I definitely don't feel like we are in the fight for pole at all, we just have to focus on getting a good result, that's all" he stated, assuming that the fight for the front row is out of his reach.
Neil Houldey, McLaren's technical director of applied engineering, shared his driver's diagnosis. The engineer confirmed that the team expects to improve ahead of qualifying, but was realistic about the chances of fighting for pole: "I'm sure we'll be a bit closer but fighting for pole will certainly be tricky this weekend" he admitted. The MCL40's performance at Monza is below expectations.
However, not everything was bad news for McLaren, the team successfully tested a series of new parts on the MCL40, including the innovative rotating rear wing, dubbed the 'H Wing': "The H Wing worked exactly as we intended, aerodynamically here it looks good. Mechanically I'm very happy that it also looks good" declared Houldey. The team hopes to be able to keep the part for the rest of the weekend and add some performance.
Despite the optimism about the new part, the gap to the leaders is worrying: "Overall, we are four tenths off... it's a bit to recover, I think we have a good balance between high and low speed corners, there's still work to do on how to maximize energy. It's always a challenge here and I think there's still an opportunity to find a bit more recovery, a bit more deployment to gain lap time" explained Houldey.
The Woking team trusts that data analysis and overnight adjustments will allow them to get closer to the rivals: "It would have been better to be a bit higher up the timesheet in terms of being closer to the top, but we are there or thereabouts and I'm sure we'll put a bit more performance into the car before tomorrow" concluded Houldey.
The day at Monza made it clear that McLaren has work ahead. The hope of a third consecutive victory fades in the face of evidence of a car that does not adapt to the demands of the Italian circuit.
Saturday's qualifying will be the first test for a team that needs to find quick answers if it wants to keep its options in the championship.
