Ferrari behind
In a Sunday that started outside the top five grid positions, McLaren managed to make a small but important comeback with both of its drivers in the Italian GP. Coming close to the podium, the result favors both the Woking team and the reigning world champion Lando Norris, now respectively closer to Ferrari and Lewis Hamilton in the overall standings.
Read more Hamilton blasts Leclerc: “I was ahead, there was no ‘we’ in Turn 2”
The show that doesn’t satisfy Norris
The GP was the scene of a long and spectacular battle between Norris and Hamilton, who then had to give way to Oscar Piastri as well, with the two McLaren drivers themselves engaging in a fight for 4th place won by Norris: “I’m happy with the race, finishing fourth was a good result for us – said the Brit – the race was tough, the car was difficult to manage and I felt I drove well to maximize what we had. The second half went very well, using the slipstream allowed me to get back into the fight, and the battles with Lewis and Oscar on the last lap were fun. It was a nice race, tough, and coming out on top was satisfying. Despite the result, it’s clear we are not where we should be. This weekend highlighted our weaknesses: we lack overall performance, especially in qualifying, and our straight-line speed is a disadvantage. Even with recent wins, we still have a lot of work to do as a team. We know our strengths and weaknesses, and the challenge now is to improve for the rest of the year.”
Read more Verstappen: “It was not easy to get the podium, but at Monza it is a special achievement”
Starting from eighth due to impeding Verstappen in qualifying, Piastri was also a protagonist of overtakes and counter-overtakes in the top positions, finishing 5th behind his teammate: “I think this weekend my pace was the most encouraging in a while – commented #81 – it was definitely a tough battle. The race was quite tricky with the back-and-forth effect, especially with Lewis and then Verstappen, which made it hard to break away. You had to be very smart to avoid losing time. In the end, we were the third fastest team today. Mercedes was clearly much faster than everyone, and even Max had more pace than we expected. It was a good result for the team and probably the best result we could get. It was an intense and hot race, but I felt much better and I hope we can keep this positive momentum going forward.”
Read more Skoda Superb, future in discussion
