Italian Grand Prix 2025 F1: Norris Cautious Despite Topping Second Practice At Monza

Lando Norris admitted the gap between drivers is “a bit close for my liking” after he topped second practice at the Italian Grand Prix.

The McLaren driver finished 0.083 seconds ahead of Charles Leclerc at Monza, while Carlos Sainz and team-mate Oscar Piastri were both within 0.181 seconds of Norris.

This was also after Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton and Leclerc led the way in the first practice session of the event earlier on Friday.

Norris is looking to become the first McLaren driver to secure two consecutive poles at the Italian Grand Prix since Ayrton Senna (four between 1988 and 1991), while a win at Monza would see the British driver become the sixth person to reach 10 race victories for the team.

After an initial improvement between the first two practice sessions, Norris hopes to continue that trend over the weekend.

“Normally by this point we have, like, a one-second gap on everyone but at the moment it's just a bit close for my liking,” said Norris.

“I feel like some small things to improve and for us to still be P1, I thought was good. I thought we improved some stuff from FP1 to FP2 but just a bit close, so I just need to try and make the gap a bit bigger so we're a little more comfortable.

“This is the complete opposite downforce level to Zandvoort where we were just easily quickest and it felt pretty amazing. Here it's quite the opposite.

“Not a surprise, this is probably what we were expecting, but I definitely think we don't perform quite to the same level in these low-downforce conditions as we do when we are at high downforce.

“The competitors catch up, it looks a bit closer and that makes our life a bit trickier. But I think we're still in a reasonable place, some small things to improve and we'll be a bit better.”