Lando Norris: It’s amazing we were ahead of Mercedes

During practice in Monaco, each of the McLaren drivers had their own problems. But if the residual effects after a cold didn’t stop Lando Norris from training normally, Daniel Riccardo ended Friday earlier than planned due to a broken car.

Lando Norris (5th): “I’m still not fully recovered, but I’m much better than a week ago. Let’s say I’m 99% back to normal, and although I’m still coughing, the temperature is gone, and my condition already allows me to enjoy driving and maintain concentration.

The first day at the track in Monaco wasn’t bad, so overall I’m happy. Somewhat surprisingly we were able to get ahead of both Mercedes drivers – I expected them to be a little faster than us. Now our plan is to stay ahead of them, and if we can beat them, that will be great.”

Daniel Riccardo (without time): “Of course everything went very fast, although I felt that something was about to happen. I tried to correct the situation until the end, but I even started to lose the car at the entrance of the 13th corner, after which it no longer obeyed me.

This is all a bit odd, because usually in Turn 14 there are some incidents where, if you overdo it, the car can jump onto the curb, unload completely and become uncontrollable.

But to be honest, working with the settings and trying to find the optimal balance, we just went too far in some ways. An entire session was lost due to this accident, but I know the team will be able to fix the car and I am fine, so tomorrow we will be ready to continue working.

The first session went well (Ricciardo set 7th time) and we use the information collected then; besides, Lando did well in the second practice, so we can still catch up.”