“Actually, we don’t take much positives with us,” says McLaren driver Lando Norris after positions ninth and ten for him and Oscar Piastri in the Monaco Grand Prix 2023. Because the pace in the dry was “pretty shocking” from McLaren’s point of view , says Norris. But there was a glimmer of hope.
Norris points to the McLaren times with intermediates when it was wet at the Formula 1 race in Monaco. In this phase, Norris was one of the fastest in the field, was “even faster than Max [Verstappen]”, as he notes with satisfaction.
He jokes: “I would have liked Max to get blue flags. That would have happened like the first time in his life! I would have loved to pass him because he would have hated it and I would have loved it. It would have been fun. He was also leading the race and I didn’t want to bother him too much.”
The McLaren speed is not enough in Monaco
Especially since Norris was lapped in the McLaren MCL60. And therein lies the main problem for the traditional British team: “We were just really slow.”
Team boss Andrea Stella is “satisfied nonetheless” and says: “Realistically, points positions with both cars are a good result for us, and we take that with us. But: Alpine is now one of the teams that are significantly faster than us. It has to So something has to happen in front of us so that we can get into the points.”
What Stella wants to say: Normally, the top teams Red Bull, Aston Martin, Ferrari and Mercedes are all in the top 8. If Alpine also makes it into the top 10, nobody else gets championship points.
After all: McLaren is fast on intermediates
Norris sees it that way too and therefore has “mixed feelings”, as he says: “There are five or six teams that are significantly faster than us. Alpine is clearly ahead of us. And AlphaTauri was also significantly faster in Monaco.”
It was only thanks to the good intermediate times that he and Piastri managed to catch Yuki Tsunoda in the race and secure the points. Because in the wet it’s not primarily about the qualities of the car, but “more about how many risks you want to take,” explains Norris. “And I took a lot of risks. It paid off because we caught Yuki.”
But perhaps McLaren could have done even better if the team hadn’t called Norris into the pits to change tires on lap 50. Looking back, that was “the only mistake,” says Norris. Because shortly afterwards the rain came and McLaren brought Norris in again for the stop.
McLaren expected only light rain
“We just didn’t expect the rain. The team told me it wouldn’t rain much and only for a short time,” says Norris. “If we had waited a few more laps, we wouldn’t have lost 30 seconds that cost us a few positions.”
According to McLaren team boss Stella, the weather was very well in view. “The forecast called for light rain. That’s why we didn’t want to leave Lando out on worn tires. Because when it gets wet, the dry tires are useless,” he explains. “We thought Hard was a good choice to get through this phase.”
But then the rain increased and the McLaren tactic didn’t work. “Looking back, of course, you could say that we shouldn’t have brought Lando into the pits,” says Stella. “But then we might have to talk about why he left.”
Piastri makes decent Monaco debut, but…
Norris stayed behind in the dry and in the wet, as did Formula 1 rookie Piastri, who finished just behind his team-mate P10 and scored a point on his Monaco debut. “I’m very happy with that,” says Piastri.
“When you start from P11 in Monaco, you can’t ask for much more. We mastered the race well. If you have to switch from dry tires to intermediates in between, it’s quite a learning curve in the sixth Grand Prix. I just managed it to keep the car on the track.”
The McLaren driver emphasizes that he had to fight a lot this weekend. In the training sessions, he was “constantly missing six tenths” on Norris, “and that wasn’t a good feeling,” said Piastri.
What Piastri needs to do better
“In qualifying I got a lot closer and rounded it off with a point in the race. That’s a positive step forward, especially in the most difficult Grand Prix of the year. Monaco, rain, slicks – it doesn’t get much more difficult than that , I think.”
Team boss Stella also knows how to appreciate that. He speaks of a “remarkable progress” at Piastri. “We were already wondering what was going on. But then he was competitive right away in Q1.” For a rookie, Piastri “sold well” from qualifying in Monaco, says Stella.
But Piastri knows he has his homework: “We have to look at why I didn’t get up to speed faster. Because it’s never nice to go into qualifying with such a deficit. It makes life more difficult for me because I have to find time, And so do the engineers.”
“It would be better for everyone involved to be fully there earlier. On the other hand, Monaco is of course special. In the future, it still has to be quicker.”
The next update at McLaren is pending
The latter is also the key word for McLaren in general. The aim is to make the car “faster”, says Stella. He adds: “We have just released the package that we should get between Austria and Great Britain.”
“We have refined the concepts that work well. This should make the car better and look noticeably different than before. And that will also form the basis for future developments in the coming year. In the second half of the season we will have a second big one follow updates.”