Lando Norris reflects on F1 Monaco GP win with Charles Leclerc and Oscar Piastri adding on the fight along with team bosses on the two-stop strategy.
The job was mostly done on Saturday in F1 Monaco GP after McLaren’s Norris took pole ahead of Ferrari’s Leclerc on his last attempt. The two-stop strategy still kept it open on paper considering the wacky strategies that was expected to go with potential safety car periods.
But apart from the one Virtual Safety Car, nothing happened. There was late tension provided by Red Bull’s Max Verstappen, who extended his stint until the final lap in the hope of some kind of intervention. That made things interesting since Leclerc got close to Norris in the order.
The Monegasque thought he had a chance in that period but it was not to be. Eventually, Norris saw it through to bridge the gap to Piastri to three points in the title fight. For him, it was not the Sunday drive but how he performed on Saturday was the key takeaway in a bid to get back on track.
The Australian just didn’t have the legs in Monaco eventually to end up third, which he was pleased with in the larger context. For Leclerc, it was slightly disappointing to miss out on pole and a win, but looking how his season has gone so far with difficulties, it was a welcome result.
Team boss Frederic Vasseur had similar thoughts but he was not too excited about it, while talking about the performance. At the same time, Andrea Stella reflected on if 1-2 was possible, as he praised the drive by Norris. All five also shared their thoughts on how the two-stop worked out.
Race, result –
Norris: “Well, all I saw was camera lenses. So, I can dream of better, but it was… I mean, it’s the feelings. Of course, the view of the team and seeing everyone, my mum and dad down below… Yeah, it’s the feelings inside, which are really the special ones. Seeing the chequered flag and, yeah, winning in Monaco is something I dreamed of when I was a kid. There are many things that I think everyone dreams of – it’s getting to Formula 1, winning a race in Formula 1, and winning a race in Monaco. And we achieved it today. So yeah, proud of the whole team, of myself, and big accomplishment for all of us. The team haven’t won since, what, 2008 or something. So not just a good one for me, but a good one for McLaren too. No dramas. I think there were definitely some more tense moments in the race when I needed to push, and Charles was never that far behind.
“Especially at the end with Max ahead, there were some tense moments trying not to get too close to Max, otherwise that’s when Charles had opportunities. But I think we managed it well with the strategy. It’s always hard to know what we could have done better. I’m sure we can review things and look back on it. But in the end, the result was the perfect one. Tricky at times, with the amount of cars, there were big bunches of cars, so getting through them without making mistakes, without any silly things happening was always the most nerve-wracking bit. Otherwise, I felt good. I felt good with the tyres, with the management of tyres and stints and all of those things. So, yeah, I was happy.”
Leclerc: “I don’t know. I’m never really happy with second place. Then if you do a step back and you look at our season, I think this is a very positive result for the whole team. Especially coming here, we had very low expectations, just because our low-speed performance has been very bad all season. However, I think here, it’s a very specific track because there are a lot of bumps, a lot of kerb riding, and I think our car is pretty good on that. That helped us to close the gap. So, yeah, I think we did a really good job, and 18 points plus the 10 of Lewis are very valuable points for the situation we are in. On that, I think we should be proud. Am I over the moon for a second place? Not really, but it’s been a very positive weekend anyway.
“It’s very difficult. When Max at the end was in front, I really believed in it until the very end. I thought about it all night, the two or three places where I could try something on Lando, and I was willing to take all the risks possible to try and get that win. But, unfortunately, these opportunities never came. Or at least I had maybe two or three laps where I was like, “OK, maybe I go for it,” but Lando straight away saw those and defended very well. So I basically couldn’t really go and try something. At the end, there were no opportunities for me. I think there were maybe two laps in Rascasse, which was the place where I was trying, and maybe one in Fairmont. But the Fairmont one was very optimistic, maybe.”
Piastri: “Yep. Pretty much exactly how I expected. I think there was a lot of action behind, so maybe that was a bit different. But from where I was at, it panned out pretty much how I thought. It definitely made the pace of the race a bit higher, certainly compared to last year. So from the cockpit, it was a little bit more intense. We’re still not pushing flat out, but it just made certain points of the race a bit more tense. Everything felt okay, but you’re not really pushing it to the limit in the race.
“I was pretty happy with it in qualifying. I think we got there eventually. It was more just struggling to get into a rhythm before qualifying. And around here, you pay the price for not having that clean run into quali. So that’s where I think our weekend got away from us a little bit. But the pace was still good, just trying to get everything out of it. Every single lap was tough yesterday. And today, we tried a few things to get higher than third, but it didn’t work.”
Vasseur: “Honestly, I was not mega excited because I know that to overtake someone in Monaco you need to have a delta performance of 3.5 or 4 seconds a lap. And from the beginning of the weekend between Charles and Norris we are speaking about hundreds of seconds. Except if something happened or if they touched the wall, because they had a lot of margin, they were not pushing in the right way. They were in a kind of a performance zone. I was not mega excited. It’s true that after Imola the level of expectation was not mega high because we were struggling.
“Before Imola it was Miami, probably Miami-Imola we were struggling a lot in the low-speed corner that we were struggling in quali. And the low-speed corner in quali is key in Monaco. That means that the level of expectation was not mega high coming to Monte Carlo. But it’s true also that after FP1, FP2, FP3 and Q1 the level of expectation was a bit different. And we were a bit frustrated yesterday evening with P2. I think today honestly we did a job, it was difficult to expect much more starting from P2. Except if something happened in front, but we can’t ask much more to Charles and to the team today.”
Stella: “I have to say we need to look into that. Because to be a 1-2, there should have been phases in which Oscar needed to have enough pace to close on Leclerc. And once you are in the gearbox of Leclerc, then you can think about options. But we were always a little too far from Leclerc to think about options with Oscar. So despite the race being more complicated than a normal Monte Carlo race, actually I think for the first three, there weren’t many options to change the order. If anything, the main stressful point for us came when Lando needed to go through the block of backmarkers for the second time. And we knew that that could have been a possibility for Ferrari to try an undercut with Leclerc.
“But I have to say the strategy team were sharp in recognising that that was a risk, and then pulling Lando in, and then the pitstop crew did a very good pitstop and we covered this attack from Leclerc. So I’m not sure there was much more we could have done to bring Oscar to P2. The Lap 1 lock-up, no, we were not very worried because it didn’t happen straight as you touched the brakes and also it wasn’t coming from high speed. So when we looked at the metrics that you can derive from some parameters and sensors, we saw that the metrics characterising the lock-up, they were relatively low. So we weren’t too concerned about tyre life or tyre performance over a long stint.”
Confidence, performance –
Norris: “I think yesterday gave me confidence. Today… Yeah, nothing new in the sense of I’ve had confidence in every Sunday we’ve had this year. I’ve not needed the confidence on Sundays, but yesterday was a bigger day for me. I was more proud of yesterday than I almost was of today. Not just because a pole in Monaco sets up a win, but the accomplishment of doing it, no matter what the track would have been, was something I’m more proud about. So yeah, a good weekend for me, not just in terms of result but personally, to kind of give myself that momentum, that boost, definitely makes me feel better going into Barcelona next week.”
Stella: “I think Lando kept the high standards, the quality of execution and the lucidity that he has had throughout the weekend, I have to say. He was faster from lap 1 in practice 1 and he kept building from lap 1 in practice 1 to capitalise on a pole position. And today, like you said, he went through various situations which required cold blood, I would say. I think the most stressful moment was, like I said before, when he went for the second time through the backmarkers, knowing that we could have called him in and he stayed very lucid. No panic, he came in. So I really think that Lando deserves to be praised for a very, very well managed and executed weekend. And I think this is just the start of many more coming in the future.”
Two-stops, strategy –
Norris: “Hated it. Because it made it a lot more scary for me. I wish it was a one-stop, it would have been a lot more chilled. It’s not for me. The rules are not made for me. They’re not made for us to enjoy it more or whatever. They’re made for the fans. They’re made to provide more entertainment for the viewers. I don’t know if that was the case. Next year? Depends on where I start.”
Leclerc: “I think being second today, I was pretty happy that this was the case because it at least gives you a little bit more hope that something is possible. Honestly, it was quite interesting because with the traffic and everything, there was lots of things happening, or at least you had to push through traffic, which is a very tricky thing to do, especially here in Monaco. So I think it gives more opportunities. I’ve heard also there were quite a lot of team games behind us. Whether this is the kind of action we want to see going ahead, I don’t know. I haven’t looked at the race yet.
“But, yeah, it’s always been a bit like that in Monaco. It’s special for that, especially on the Saturday when you’re pushing to the limit. That’s why it’s so important and tense for drivers to go into qualifying in Monaco because we know that then on Sunday you don’t have as many opportunities. That is part of the magic of Monaco. Then I understand we need to try and find a way to make it a bit more exciting, and maybe that’s the way to go. But I haven’t checked the race to really judge.”
Piastri: “It definitely made it a bit more tense at a few points. You had to push more at certain points to kind of recover the safety car windows to other cars around you or put yourself outside of someone else’s safety car window. So there were some strategic elements involved. But ultimately, at the front, I don’t think it changed a whole lot. It would have been quite a different story if there was a red flag with five laps to go and Max would have won. I’m sure if we keep this going in the future, eventually a result like that will happen. Is that what we want to see? I don’t know. But at the front, I don’t think it changed a huge amount this weekend.”
Vasseur: “Honestly, I think this didn’t change at all the race in front. Except that this opened the door to Verstappen to expect the red flag. It’s much more difficult to do it if you have just one stop because at one stage you are too slow. And you pack the group and you are exposing yourself. And during the race I didn’t watch the race on the TV, it meant that I didn’t follow what happened behind us. I understood from the question the journalist commented to you that it was not a mega success. With two stops you can imagine a strategy where if you have a team with two cars in the same region.
“To let one car go, to do a delta of 20-25 seconds, he pit, then you swap, you do the same thing. And to play this kind of game that you need to have two guys, discipline, but it’s possible. Now to police it, honestly it’s impossible because it’s not the first time. I remember that last year we played a game also that we tried to manage the gap between the two cars. And in the past McLaren did it two or three years ago. You can always do something like this on the track and if you want to start to police it, what is the limit? Is it three tenths, one second, two seconds, three seconds, but we have enough rules like this.”
Stella: “I think here we may go into the semantics a little bit. I think the race was interesting in terms of how many scenarios needed to be considered. We had twice a group of bad markers. You go through that, you lose five seconds. In itself it’s a variable that we didn’t necessarily have before and could be the variable that forces or may cause a leader to lose the position. Likewise we saw cars that didn’t stop at all. There was a very large variety of scenarios. So in this sense I think it was interesting. I think the second point we should praise is the fact that Formula 1 and the FIA made an attempt to improve racing in Monaco. I think the main limitation remains the fact that you cannot overtake. This is quite structural as a limitation and I am not sure exactly how this can be modified, can be changed, just simply by imposing a certain number of pit stops. What I am interested to see is next year with the smaller cars and with cars with less grip.
“Therefore all the braking zones will be much much longer. Cars that will have completely different power units, deployment strategy. So we are fundamentally changing the cars and I would hope that this change of the cars will make overtaking possible even at least when you are three seconds faster. Because at the moment if you are three seconds faster still you cannot overtake. But I think this has very much to do with the size of the car, with the speed of the car and the grip which means that the braking zones are anyhow very very short. There is just not materially the space in braking. So I think more than looking at the strategy we should look at the cars and see if we can create opportunity to overtake I think this is what we should focus on. I am not sure there is anything that can be done from a track layout point of view. To be honest I have never thought at this aspect but maybe there is something that we should consider even from that point of view.”
Achievement –
Norris: “Well, I think the best bit is that my kids one day will be able to tell everyone that I won in Monaco. That’s probably the thing I’m most proud about. I think it would be up there for sure, especially because of the weekend that it’s been – with pole and with the race. It wasn’t just a pole or just the race. It was both together, and I think that’s perfect. Regardless, I think that’s something to be very proud about for the rest of my life. But I think it’s a cooler thing to say, also from my lap time yesterday – the 1:09 – that’s very unlikely to be beaten for a very long time unless the track changes or whatever.
“The cars next year are nowhere near going to be as quick as this year. Hopefully, that lap time lasts for a very, very long time. So, it’s cool. It’s definitely just the saying more than anything, but also the meaning, the history, the people that have won here in the past. They don’t always go on to be champions, but most of them have. And just to know in 30 years’ time, I can say, “I mastered Monaco that one year” – or hopefully a few more – but that one year is something I look forward to saying.”
Car worked –
Leclerc: “By far, the slow-speed corners. I think this is our biggest weakness by far. That’s why also I came here very pessimistic and saying that I thought top 10 would already be a challenge. Our low-speed performance is very poor. I think on a track like this, with so many bumps and kerbs, our car is actually performing very well. This is helping us, but unfortunately, it’s only going to help us on such an extreme track like here. So yeah, we’ve got to work on our low-speed performance.”
Here’s race start: https://www.formula1.com/en/video/2025-monaco-grand-prix-norris-locks-up-into-turn-1-but-fends-off-leclerc-to-keep-the-lead-on-the-race-start.1833098162308227262
Here’s winning moment: https://www.formula1.com/en/video/2025-monaco-grand-prix-monaco-baby-norris-crosses-the-line-to-take-his-first-victory-in-the-principality.1833106691193694619
Here’s how F1 Monaco GP panned out
