According to Lando Norris, Ferrari’s impressive pace in Friday’s F1 practice session for the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix is ”not a shock”.
Norris finished fourth at the Bahrain Grand Prix and confirmed McLaren as the third fastest F1 team behind Red Bull and Mercedes.
Ferrari appears to have a significant advantage at Imola as both Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz finished both training sessions in the top six.
Conversely, McLaren was fighting for pace, with Norris finishing FP2 in eighth place overall.
Sizing in Ferrari’s impressive turn at Imola, Norris says it’s not unexpected considering how well the SF21 turned the corners in Bahrain.
“In Bahrain they were definitely faster than us on most corners – not all of them – but they look really fast here,” Norris told Sky Sports after the second RP. “I don’t think we didn’t expect that. Maybe they are a little faster than we expected, but we knew they had some races ahead of them and some races ahead of us.
On the subject of matching items
“It’s Ferrari, if there is a team right now that is going to bring a big improvement anywhere, it’s them. So it’s no surprise. Maybe a little faster than we expected, but not a shock.”
McLaren battled for pace at Imola last year and was behind Renault, AlphaTauri and Racing Point in terms of pure performance.
Norris admits that McLaren is likely to be less competitive than in Bahrain.
“It’s not as easy to find your way around this track as it is in Bahrain,” added Norris. “It’s a bit more difficult, but it’s what we expected from what we knew from last year. We have a little more problems here than in Bahrain, but the car only drives better on some tracks.”
On the subject of matching items
“This is one of those that we knew would be a little trickier for us. But we’ve made some good improvements from FP1 to FP2 so hopefully we can take another small step by tomorrow.”
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