Lando Norris reveals ‘most painful thing’ of McLaren’s Monza struggles

Lando Norris was left cursing McLaren's "painful" speed deficit after qualifying in eighth place at the Italian Grand Prix. 

Norris was set to receive a tow from team-mate Oscar Piastri on his final lap in Q3, but after the Australian made an error at Turn one and was forced to take to the run-off, this benefit disappeared. 

Instead, the reigning Formula 1 champion was forced to punch his own hole through the air, something that causes more of a disadvantage at Monza than anywhere else on the schedule.

"The most painful thing this weekend is just the straight-line speed deficit," said Norris. 

"Kimi [Antonelli] could do a 22.1 or a 0 pretty much with no slipstream, so with the slipstream, he's doing a 21.6 or something.

"I think we needed to be incredibly close to someone, and at least if I had a one-car tow, and I lose two tenths to Oscar who has a two-car tow... it's just painful from that sense. But otherwise, it's just what we got to deal with for now. 

"But it's a good example of why I said before that we need to keep pushing and improving on certain areas, and this was an area we knew we would not be very strong in."

Q3 was the closest in F1 history, with half a second separating the top 10 drivers. 

Rather than bemoaning his luck, Norris said: "I don't think anything didn't work out. It's just we needed a good slipstream, and I had priority in terms of I had to go out first of the pit lane on Q3 run one, which meant Oscar had a couple cars ahead of him, and I just had the one of Antonelli." 

He added: "It wasn't my best lap, either. I'm not going to deny that, but most and the majority of all or pretty much all my time is just lost in the straights."

As well as losing out in the speed traps, Norris has been complaining about his brakes this weekend. 

"It's just a lot of pulling, just very inconsistent with what the brakes are doing," he explained. "With such a big brake, one of the biggest braking zones of the whole season into Turn 1,  when the brakes are doing what they did today, it's just you have no confidence."