"We’re like 20kph or something quicker in the straights": Lando Norris highlights the extent of progress McLaren has made over the last 12 months

Lando Norris has highlighted a whopping 20 kph gain for McLaren at Monza compared to last season as one of the reasons behind where the team finds itself right now. The team's rise to the front began last season when it introduced its major upgrade in Austria. While the upgrade helped the team make massive strides in some areas, the car was not an all-rounder.

One of the major weaknesses was aero efficiency, which meant that McLaren was just not competitive on the long straights. This was particularly highlighted at Monza last season when both Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri finished the race behind Alex Albon in his Williams.

This season, however, there's a night and day difference. McLaren has secured a front-row start while showing a more all-round car development. The car is fast in all conditions now and is slowly becoming a benchmark in the grid this season. During the post-qualifying press conference, Lando Norris highlighted the car's top speed gains over the last 12 months and claimed that the car was around 20kph faster than last season. He said (via "Autosport"),

"When you compare this year to last year, we’re like 20km/h or something quicker in the straights. It’s a lot. Last year we were pretty shocking in the straight, which came as a bit of a surprise, but it shows the difference between when you’re not prepared to when you’re prepared for a race, where we were last year to where we are now," Norris said.

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Lando Norris plays down the impact of the Zandvoort upgrades

Lando Norris also played down the role of the Zandvoort upgrades introduced after the summer break. On the very first race after the summer break, McLaren introduced a major upgrade that coincided with Lando winning the race by more than 20 seconds.

When questioned in the press conference if the upgrade has just bolted the team forward, Norris did not think that was the case, as he said,

"For sure – every little counts. We’ve definitely been taking some smaller steps forward, but some of the upgrades we’ve had have been track-specific. The rear wing that we had, which was the main part of the upgrade last weekend, we’ve run it again here. So, it’s not like what worked perfectly well there works here so."

He added,

“We had that, but we also had the rear wing again this weekend. So, it’s specific things, but it’s not like revolutionised the car or made the car feel like it’s a lot better."

Lando Norris will be starting the F1 Italian GP from pole position, and this time around he would be hoping to hold position at the start, something he has been unable to do in the past.