Lando Norris delivers brutal Mercedes verdict after Monza defeat

Lando Norris was left stunned after witnessing the pace of Mercedes duo Kimi Antonelli and George Russell during Sunday's Italian Grand Prix.

Norris went into the race at Monza with renewed hope of retaining his F1 title after scoring back-to-back victories either side of the summer break in Hungary and the Netherlands.

At Monza, however, despite possessing the same Mercedes engine power as their main rivals, McLaren was left wanting around the iconic 'Temple of Speed'.

Norris and team-mate Oscar Piastri finished 19 seconds behind Italy's history-making home hero Antonelli in fourth and fifth as the 20-year-old became the first Italian in 60 years to take the chequered flag at Monza.

George Russell completed Mercedes' first one-two since the opening race of the season in Australia, whilst Max Verstappen also stepped onto the podium for Red Bull.

"We've seen in past races that the Red Bull can be very fast on these types of circuits, with good top speeds and stuff, and that was again proven," said Norris, speaking to the media, including RacingNews365. "They were better than us.

"But it was clear that Mercedes are still in a league of their own compared to us. You know, we won by bigger margins over the last few races, and they were still fighting for good points at those times. We were not even close to fighting for a top two.

"Just frustrating, but we said it before the weekend. We've seen what our expectations are, and we still have work to do, which we knew.

"So it's not a surprise. We just need to work on the slow- and medium-speed corners, the stability of the car, which is just not good enough, and some straight-line speed. If we can sort that, then that's a lot of stuff sorted."

McLaren pace 'dreadful'

It was evident from qualifying that McLaren would not be in contention for a podium, and then once the race started, neither Norris nor Piastri were able to fight with the frontrunners.

Norris notably found himself battling with surprise polesitter Pierre Gasly in his Alpine once the Frenchman was dispatched by the leading trio.

"What made or broke my race was just every time I lost time to the guys ahead and didn't have a slipstream, so when I was fighting with Pierre, we lost two seconds, and I lost the gaps to the guys ahead," said Norris.

"I was slowly catching them, but as soon as we were in clean air, we were shocking. Our pace was just dreadful. We needed someone to pull us along, and then we could compete. We were more on a level playing field compared to them.

"It was almost a good thing to not be ahead for too often, because generally you would always go backwards. But then when you were behind, you always felt like you could go forward.

"It was always a tough position to be in, and sometimes you just had to be a little bit patient. For me, that worked on the final two laps, so I think P4 was the best we could achieve. P4 and P5, for us as a team, were good."