The McLaren stars were no match for Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc on Friday in Monaco – but Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris believe the pace is there
No McLaren at the front on day one in Monaco: As with his second place last year, championship leader Oscar Piastri once again has to line up behind local hero Charles Leclerc.
The McLaren star only finished fifth in the first practice session, while team-mate Lando Norris took third place. In the afternoon, Norris then moved down a place to fourth – but while the Briton was still three tenths behind Leclerc, Piastri worked his way up to second place and 38 thousandths of a second behind the Scuderia star.
In the meantime, it looked like it was going to be a bad day for the championship leader, as he had a scary moment in the afternoon when he slipped in turn one and damaged the front end of his car when he hit the tire barrier.
“It was indeed difficult, the whole day was a bit mixed,” Piastri reported later. But the Australian also receives praise for his behavior during the mistake in Sainte-Dévote: “It was very clever of him to open up the steering and drive straight into the tire barrier,” judges ex-Formula 1 driver Christian Klien on ServusTV: “That way he didn’t break any suspension and was even able to continue training. ”
And then still set the second-best time. Piastri therefore also believes: “If everything comes together for us, the pace is really good – it’s just not so easy to get to the heart of the matter at the moment. There’s a lot to analyze now,” says the championship leader, who knows that he and his engineers still have a lot of work ahead of them and ‘a lot to learn.’
Norris: “Difficult to get really clean laps ”
However, he also takes responsibility for himself behind the wheel: “Today the mess was more on my side, it was just pretty chaotic from me personally. I will try to make a fresh start tomorrow, because the potential in the car is definitely there,” says Piastri, although he is aware of the competition: ‘Ferrari clearly looks stronger here than last time. ’
Teammate Norris also sees room for improvement after day one in the Principality: “Monaco is always fun, but it’s also always stressful. Today it was difficult to get really clean laps. But the feeling in the car was good right from the start. However, we still have to improve in some areas,” believes the Briton.
Why the McLaren is not yet so easy to control is “difficult to put into words”, says Norris: “It’s a lot of little things – nothing major, but when you’re talking about hundredths in Monaco, these little things add up. It’s just difficult to get everything right at the same time: Braking, corner entries, tire temperature, grip, car feel – everything has to be perfectly tuned,” Norris knows: ”It’s just an interplay of many factors.”
