Peter Windsor spots ‘wonderful thing’ Lando Norris did that earned him Monza pole position

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Lando Norris edged his teammate Oscar Piastri to pole for the Italian Grand Prix, after going a tenth faster than his McLaren teammate.

It is the second pole in a row for Lando Norris having achieved the same feat in Zandvoort, which he went on to win by a comfortable margin from title rival Max Verstappen.

The Briton was surprised when he crossed the line when his engineer informed him that his 1m19.327s was good enough for pole despite making a mistake in the first sector, which was a surprising 0.695s faster than Verstappen who starts from seventh.

Fellow Briton Lewis Hamilton was also left ‘furious’ by a mistake he made during his lap, having felt he was in contention for pole after his quickest time in FP3.

Discussing his effort on his YouTube channel, Peter Windsor explained what Norris did later on in the lap that enabled him to pick up more time than his rivals.

Peter Windsor explains how Lando Norris earned pole at Monza

Norris appeared to get a bad exit from the Variante chicane, which forced him to make up time throughout the rest of the lap.

According to Windsor, the Briton did something that he has done on previous occasions when going for pole at the first Lesmo, a quick right-hander that demands drivers maintain momentum without running wide on the exit.

“He knew he hadn’t done a good job in sector one and had to make it up in the first Lesmo, and you can do that by braking later,” said Windsor.

“But Lando doesn’t do that, he does one of those wonderful things where he comes out of the brakes and throttle at moments when other drivers are on a little bit of brake or a little bit of throttle, Lando just lets the car settle at high speed.”

Lando Norris could finally break an unwanted first-lap streak

On all six occasions that he has started from pole position, including both Grand Prix and Sprint races in F1, Norris has lost the lead on the opening lap.

At Zandvoort it seemed easier to maintain due to the relatively short run down to Turn 1 being only 250m, one of the shortest on the calendar, but a poor start enabled Verstappen to overtake from second on the grid.

With Piastri lining up alongside him, Norris could theoretically count on his teammate for some help heading into the Variante chicane if neither gets jumped by faster cars behind them.

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The run from the pole grid slot to Turn 1 is 472m, so there is a lot of time for drivers to slipstream and attempt a move if they find the space heading down the narrow road.

Norris will hope that he can keep the lead and in the clean air, as it looks like the race could end up being a two-stop given the mix of high track temperatures and tyre degradation.