Can McLaren repeat last year’s performance this weekend and land a surprise coup? The racing team had surprisingly landed a double victory in Monza 2021, but Lando Norris fears that will probably not happen this year.
“I just want to believe in it, but it’s going to be a difficult weekend,” says the Brit.
“We are now at a point where we understand the strengths and weaknesses of the car. I think I know where we will be strong and where we will be weak.”
And Monza at least doesn’t seem to be one of the really good weekends.
Grand Prix at Spa gives McLaren no reason for hope
Spa always gives a little information about the rough balance of power, because both circuits have similar requirements with little downforce.
The bad news for McLaren: In Belgium, both drivers did not score points, even though Norris started from far behind after an engine change.
However, the McLaren driver complained in Spa that his DRS would have no effect – now he is a bit smarter: “We simply had one of the smallest tail flights, and if you then open DRS, it doesn’t do much,” he says.
“Red Bull had a significantly larger rear wing and gained significantly more speed with DRS.”
McLaren wants to take small steps
“But even with the big rear wing, they were almost as fast as we were without the wing. And that makes it more difficult,” Norris quarrels.
But McLaren also had problems in fast and slow corners and suffered from high tire wear – not a good sign for Monza.
“I think we can take a few small steps and have also learned a few things that we can take from Spa to Monza,” said Norris, “but it’s not something that will suddenly take us miles forward.”
Ricciardo returns to the place of his greatest success
Team colleague Daniel Ricciardo experienced the next low point in Zandvoort: In 17th place he just left Nicholas Latifi behind.
In Monza he is now returning to the place where he celebrated the greatest moment of his McLaren days with his victory. But that’s a memory that feels far away at the moment.
“I’m sure it will be a strange feeling,” says the Australian. “It was such a big moment last year but this time we’re in a different position. I’d like to say we can fight for a podium but we know the truth is where we are at the moment. “
Ricciardo has not finished in the points for three races and has meanwhile announced his departure from McLaren at the end of the season.
Ricciardo is currently experiencing a downward slide
That doesn’t seem to be a relief, at least in sporting terms, because 15th place in Spa has been Ricciardo’s best result since the announcement.
Zandvoort, on the other hand, was basically the worst weekend of the season for him with 17th place in qualifying and in the race. “There have been some bad ones,” he says. “And I didn’t think it could get any worse.”
He was doing reasonably well in qualifying until he made a mistake in the last corner and was eliminated in Q1 as a result.
Of course, that made his life difficult for Sunday as well. “I might have had a little more pace than the cars around me, but it wasn’t enough to overtake and drive through the field.”
“As much as we hoped, nobody expected me to plow through ten cars,” said the Australian.
Increased gap to Alpine
In the World Championship, McLaren has once again lost ground to Alpine in Zandvoort. 24 points behind definitely sounds catchable, but McLaren hasn’t scored more points than the French in a race since Monaco – that’s nine races ago.
At Zandvoort there was at least a good chance after both Alpines had already retired in Q2, but in the race Norris still finished behind Alonso. “That sucks,” he gets annoyed, but he can’t really blame himself.
“We were way faster than Haas, AlphaTauri and everyone else, so they got out of the way pretty easily, and then the fight was just between him and me,” Norris said.
“With two Alpines behind me and Fernando at the wheel, it’s quite difficult to keep both behind me. But we tried. It could have been worse.”
Still, a weekend like Monza 2021 would obviously help McLaren. But that is not to be expected this Sunday.