ITALIAN GP – Lando Norris beats Oscar Piastri by a tenth to take pole as Red Bull struggles continue
Lando Norris has beaten his McLaren teammate Oscar Piastri by a tenth to take pole for the Italian Grand Prix. The Englishman seemed surprised by his pole position after he had a bad final attempt to beat Piastri, in one of the tightest sessions of the season with a tenth and a half covering the top five.
But it appeared that when it came down to the final attempts in Q3 Norris despite describing his lap as bad, managed to take his second pole in a row, and beat his teammate giving him another opportunity to try and further close the gap to Max Verstappen in the championship.
Norris has had a perfect start to the second half of the season, six days on from his win in Zandvoort he continued to try and grip the title race and going into qualifying no one expected such a big advantage. Piastri failed to improve on his last lap, but George Russell put his Mercedes third as he failed to find enough to split the two McLarens.
Russell went two hundredths faster than the two Ferrari’s with Charles Leclerc going six thousandths faster than teammate Carlos Sainz. but it appeared through qualifying that with Red Bull seeming to be out of the picture it was going to be open for anyone to take pole.
It was also a decent performance from Russell, he had missed FP1 and his incoming teammate for 2025 Andrea Kimi Antonelli crashed his car in the first session, meaning Russell only had half an hour’s worth of running in the second.
Russell said, “A very up and down weekend. Missed a lot of yesterday, which put me on the back foot, Q1 and Q2 were messy, didn’t feel good in the car. But managed to get it in the sweet spot in Q3. So pretty pleased with the result and it’s kind of exciting to see how close it was.”
Ferrari had hoped their home race and an upgrade for this weekend aimed to bring them back into the fight, while they did look quick, they appeared to struggle through the chicanes that could make them vulnerable to Mercedes and Red Bull in the race to being overtaken.
Leclerc said he was “disappointed” with fourth, but was just over a tenth and a quarter off pole. Lewis Hamilton put his Mercedes comfortably ahead of Verstappen, by just over half a second. Incoming teammate Hamilton despite being sixth three places behind Russell, berated himself as his qualifying struggles this season continued.
he said, “I’m just not very good, simple as that. I’m just not very good at qualifying. I can’t put a lap together and it’s unbelievably frustrating. I’ll keep working at it and that’s all I can do.”
The Dutchman struggled with the balance of the car with the understeer leaving him struggling to find grip in the final part of qualifying. This gives Norris the perfect opportunity if Red Bull continues to struggle in the race to close the gap in the driver’s championship.
Red Bull did try to use Verstappen’s teammate Sergio Perez to try and move him up the grid, they tried the tow, but it only resulted in him moving ahead of the Mexican has he went four hundredths faster. The team were so dominant up until Miami but certainly, now evidence suggests that the once dominant car is now faces the possibility of losing both championships to McLaren.
But for Perez probably what Red Bull will want to see if they are continue with him as his performances during the first half of the season had brought into question his future. Perez, who had been faster than Verstappen on his first lap in final qualifying, ran wide at the second Lesmo corner, ruining his own lap before helping Verstappen.
Strong qualifying saw Alex Albon beat Nico Hulkenberg to ninth by three-tenths, both making it through despite Monza being a circuit harder for the back markers on paper.
Fernando Alonso was fastest of those knocked out in Q2 the Aston Martin driver missing out on Q3 after being a hundredth slower than Hulkenberg at the end of the session. The Spaniard went just under half a second ahead of Daniel Ricciardo, the RB getting through to the second part of qualifying after knocking out his teammate Yuki Tsunoda in Q1.
Kevin Magnussen was thirteenth going ahead of the Alpine duo of Pierre Gasly and Esteban Ocon, Gasly nearly three hundredths faster. Tsunoda put his RB six hundredths ahead of Lance Stroll. In his first qualifying Franco Colapinto put his Williams eighteenth despite a slight off, he was just under half a tenth behind Stroll.
Sauber has struggled all weekend, Valtteri Bottas nineteenth going almost four and a half tenths faster than teammate Guanyu Zhou.
Related
- ITALIAN GP – Lewis Hamilton leads a Mercedes one-two nearly a tenth ahead of George Russell in third practice
- ITALIAN GP – Lewis Hamilton fastest three thousandths ahead of Lando Norris in second practice
- ITALIAN GP – Max Verstappen fastest by a quarter of a second in first practice
- Welcome to the Italian Grand Prix – 2024
- PRIXVIEW – Italian Grand Prix