Lando Norris cuts dejected figure with F1 hot streak at risk

Lando Norris gave a blunt assessment of McLaren's opening day at Monza, admitting he does not feel in the fight for pole position as his run of consecutive victories looks under threat.

The F1 drivers' champion arrived at the Italian Grand Prix on the back of successive poles and wins at the Hungaroring and Zandvoort, but the MCL40 has never been expected to shine at a circuit that punishes aerodynamic drag and rewards straight-line speed, two areas where McLaren has acknowledged weaknesses.

Friday's practice sessions underlined those concerns. Norris finished sixth in FP1, over seven tenths adrift of pace-setter Charles Leclerc, before placing fourth in FP2 behind George Russell, Leclerc and Kimi Antonelli.

Asked whether the day had been as decent as it appeared from the outside, Norris rejected that suggestion.

"Not very decent," he flatly replied. "Just struggling a lot more with pace. To be honest, in the corners we expected to be good at, we're bad at, and the corners we expected to be bad at, we're not so bad at.

"But we're still off, so not in a great place at the minute. We'll see what we can do overnight, but it's going to be tougher than before for sure."

McLaren face an uphill battle

The picture Norris painted was reinforced on the engineering side. McLaren technical director for applied engineering Neil Houldey confirmed the team is roughly three tenths off its target.

"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. He added that fine-tuning energy management would be the primary focus overnight, with "an opportunity to find lap time through better harvesting and deployment."

Houldey acknowledged the challenge ahead in qualifying, describing the team as "hopeful rather than expectant" about a pole challenge, while noting that Ferrari in particular appear to have made a strong step with their upgrade package.

Monza has always been an outlier on the calendar, a circuit where the pecking order can shift dramatically.

McLaren's form spike in 2026 has come at high-downforce, technical layouts, exactly the opposite of what the Temple of Speed demands.

Team principal Andrea Stella said before the weekend that aerodynamic drag is not a strength of the MCL40, and the early evidence from Friday supports that assessment.

Ferrari locked out the top two in FP1 with a resurgent Leclerc, while Mercedes placed Russell fastest in FP2. Both teams look strong contenders for pole and the victory on Sunday, with Red Bull and Racing Bulls also lurking.

"It's close between a lot of the guys at the top," Norris said. "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."