Lando Norris has already exceeded expectation this season and can now be called a Monaco Grand Prix podium-sitter after another fantastic race by the British driver in the special Gulf-livery, finishing third ahead alongside former team-mate Carlos Sainz Jr and Max Verstappen.
Norris had shown comfortable pace throughout the weekend, finishing in the top ten in all three practice sessions before qualifying in fifth-place ahead of current World Champion Lewis Hamilton. The McLaren F1 Team driver maintained a good pace throughout the race, and after the two retirees of Charles Leclerc and Valtteri Bottas ahead of him, he managed to secure the second podium of the 2021 season, holding off a late surge by Sergio Perez.
Understandably, Norris was excited to secure a podium in one of F1’s iconic Grand Prix and thanked the team for achieving the result, challenging to improve even further now.
“Awesome. Monaco podium! It’s pretty incredible, I never thought it could happen coming into this weekend at all, so I’m super, super happy.” Said Lando.
“I’m proud of the team for what we’ve achieved this weekend. We’ve made some good progress. We’ve still got more work to do – it’s not like we can let-up now – but another trophy and a lot of points for us, which is pretty awesome.
“A big thanks to the whole team and everyone back at the factory as well for all the work they’re putting into it. It’s paying off, and I hope this is motivation to work even harder and keep bringing improvements.”
The Monaco Grand Prix is one of Daniel Ricciardo’s most successful Grand Prix’s in his career, scoring 85 points overall in Monte Carlo – more than any other circuit – but will want to forget this year’s race in a hurry.
Unlike his team-mate, Ricciardo struggled in all practice sessions and was eliminated in Q2 in qualifying, starting twelfth on the grid. That’s where the Australian finished due to the difficulty of overtaking around Monaco.
Ricciardo says the difficult qualifying result made the race tricky, plus the slow start on the medium, which he dropped two places on lights out, decided the Grand Prix result for him despite improving on the second stint of tyres.
“This has just been a bit of a weekend to forget for me, unfortunately. The race was always going to be tricky after a difficult qualifying session yesterday and that’s how it turned out.
“I struggled a bit at the start on the Medium and that pretty much decided our race.
“The second stint on the Hard was encouraging and the lap-times really started to improve, but by that point there wasn’t much more I could do given how hard it is to pass here.
“I’ll just have to figure out what happened and just step away for a few days to switch off a little bit before going again in Baku.
Despite a challenging and difficult weekend, Ricciardo was pleased to see Norris secure a podium for the team, highlighting that the car does have pace.
“On the positive side, it was a great result for Lando and the team, so congratulations to everyone.
“It shows the pace is there in the car and that we’ve just got to work at unlocking it, but that will come with time and mileage.”
