Norris and Piastri discuss the race as late Monza duel comes down to the final lap

Credit: Luca Martini / WHYOUT images

McLaren left Monza with both cars inside the top five, but it was the fight between them, rather than anyone else, that decided how the afternoon ended. Oscar Piastri held fourth into the closing laps before Lando Norris found a way past at the Variante Ascari on the very last lap, with the pit wall reminding both drivers over the radio to keep it clean as they went at it. Piastri crossed the line fifth, Norris fourth, a mere two-tenths between them after 53 laps that had swung back and forth from the start.

That yo-yoing was the theme of Piastri's race long before his teammate arrived in his mirrors. Monza's blend of long straights and heavy braking zones had turned the whole field into a string of on-again, off-again battles, Mercedes' leading duo included, and Piastri found himself constantly weighing whether a position was worth defending or a straight-line advantage worth trading away.

"It was a challenging race for sure, I think. A very different race in Monza compared to what we've seen previously, a lot of yo-yo battling, which was quite difficult to know what exactly the right thing to do was, because obviously you can't just give up an easy overtake, but you also don't want to be losing race time," he said. "You want to be just going with whoever you're racing, so that was quite difficult to manage, but definitely some lessons learned from that one."

On the fight with Norris specifically, much of it came down to how each driver deployed their battery through the final laps. "It was a tough battle for sure, I think. We both seemed pretty even, especially in the last few laps, so it was definitely challenging to know when to use your battery, when not to. And I think we saw a good battle. From my point of view, I thought it was good racing, exciting, that's for sure. And ultimately, I think that was the best result we could have got as a team."

Norris was more matter-of-fact about it. Monza's low-downforce demands have not traditionally favoured McLaren's car, and this weekend arrived with a new rear wing built specifically to close that gap, on the back of Norris having won the previous two grands prix on more conventional layouts.

"It's all right. I mean, it's good fun in parts. Of course, a lot of it's just who presses a button when and so forth, but it was good fun and well-fought. So I was happy with the points in the end," he said. Asked whether the result suggested McLaren had found something to carry into the tracks that suit them less, he was quick to play it down.

"No, I mean, we'll still be good on some tracks, I think we're still going to be some tracks. We're nowhere near where we need to be, so I don't think nothing changed, really. We've got some new parts here, obviously, like the wing and stuff, but they all worked and they helped us. But we're clearly not close to the level we need to be." It is a blunter admission than the result alone suggests, coming on a weekend where Mercedes' Kimi Antonelli extended his championship lead to 66 points with a win from nineteenth on the grid, and a reminder that fourth and fifth, however well fought, were papaya's ceiling rather than their target at Monza.