Lando Norris puts McLaren on Monza alert with 'one second' joke

Lando Norris light-heartedly mused that McLaren is usually one second ahead of the competition at this stage of an F1 weekend, after an unusually close Friday at Monza. The British driver finished the first free practice session at the Italian Grand Prix down in a relatively lowly sixth place, whilst team-mate and title rival Oscar Piastri sat out the hour for Alex Dunne. Norris enjoyed the upper hand on the F1 drivers' championship leader in FP2, topping the session, with Piastri only fourth-fastest at the Temple of Speed. However, the 25-year-old was only a tenth of a second quicker than Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz, who ended the session splitting the MCL39s. "Normally by this point we have like a one-second gap on everyone," he joked before highlighting a reality that should put McLaren on high alert. "But at the moment... just a bit close for my liking at the minute," the nine-time grand prix winner added. Norris trails Piastri by 34 points in the standings after his chassis-related retirement from the Dutch Grand Prix. Whilst that issue has since been fixed by the Woking-based squad, he needs to continue enjoying the advantage over his team-mate, something he could not do at Zandvoort. "So, yeah, not bad," Norris stated. "I feel like some small things to improve, and for us to still be P1, I thought was was good. "I thought we improved some stuff from FP1 to FP2, but yeah, just a bit close. "So, I just need to try and make the gap a bit bigger, so we're a little bit more comfortable."