Lando Norris is not yet at 100 percent after suffering from tonsillitis at the Spanish Grand Prix. But McLaren isn’t worried about his fitness for the Monaco Formula 1 race weekend.
Due to the illness, Norris had already struggled on the starting grid in the extreme heat before the race in Barcelona and only radioed a few times during the race.
After the checkered flag, he was relieved of his media duties to recover.
For Friday’s press conference in Monaco, the FIA gave Norris an exemption so that he and McLaren could concentrate fully on being in the best possible form at the start of practice. Norris finished the day fifth fastest, behind only Ferrari and Red Bull cars.
Lando Norris had ‘maximum recovery time’
McLaren team principal Andreas Seidl reveals the team have worked hard to ensure Norris is as fit as possible for Monaco. Although he is still struggling, it is believed that he will be fit for the remainder of the race weekend.
“After the race in Barcelona, the most important thing was that we as a team gave him maximum time to recover, which we did,” Seidl commented on Norris’ condition on Friday.
“He had great support from our team doctor and from his team, including his personal trainer to make sure he was fully energized when he left the garage for the first practice session today. That’s exactly what happened.”
“He’s probably not at 100 percent yet,” Seidl admits, “but he’s doing much better. I don’t expect any more problems for the rest of the weekend.”
If Norris hadn’t been fit in Monaco, McLaren could have called on Mercedes reserves Nyck de Vries and Stoffel Vandoorne as well as Alpine’s Oscar Piastri as part of the agreements with the other teams: “As always for every race weekend, we always have reserve drivers ready. “
“We have different agreements. Let’s say that if Lando wasn’t quite fit, then yes, we would have had a reserve driver ready,” said Seidl.
Andreas Seidl satisfied after the first training session, but …
The team boss was satisfied with the first practice session in Monaco. Norris was fifth, teammate Daniel Ricciardo just a tenth of a second behind in seventh. Seidl spoke of “one of our best free training sessions this year” and reported good feedback from both McLaren drivers.
“Both cars worked well, both drivers felt relatively comfortable in the car,” said the team boss. “We haven’t had any problems. That’s what we’re hoping for going into this special weekend here in Monaco. It’s also very important that everything stayed in one piece given the spare parts situation.”
That was to change in the afternoon, however, because Ricciardo crashed in the swimming pool chicane and wasn’t able to pull out again afterwards, so he didn’t have a lap time. Norris again confirmed his pace and was fifth again.