Data reveals where big Lando Norris gap to Max Verstappen came in Monza qualifying

Lando Norris took pole position in Italy, but Max Verstappen was a long way behind in P7.

Lando Norris took his fourth pole position of the F1 2024 season, his second in a row. The McLaren driver made evident on track the dominance of the MCL38 over the rest of the field, and despite not completing a perfect lap, he was the fastest man in the Italian Grand Prix qualifying.

Lando Norris beat Oscar Piastri by +0.109s to take pole position at Monza. The grid was ordered by teams with McLaren dominating, followed by Mercedes and Ferrari.

Lando Norris and Max Verstappen data shows where Italian GP qualifying time difference came from

Red Bull found themselves one step below the top three with Max Verstappen finishing the qualifying in P7, his worst qualifying result since Singapore 2023 and +0.695s behind Lando Norris.

Max Verstappen’s Q3 lap was particularly slow in comparison to Lando Norris’. And Lando himself was not satisfied with his lap. Max made a mistake at the exit of the second Lesmo corner when he may have been disturbed by his team-mate Sergio Perez, who touched the gravel with his left rear tyre and made the Dutch driver make a small correction at the corner entry.

In addition to this, the RB20’s speed through the Ascari Chicane was particularly poor by comparison to their front-running rivals. Norris was able to be 9km/h faster at this point, which also allowed McLaren to have more speed going into the long straight before Parabolica.

But also in Parabolica the differences were tremendously significant. Norris and Piastri were able to be 10km/h faster in this key Monza corner before the final metres approaching the 1.1km long main straight.

Verstappen admitted to the media present at the circuit, including PlanetF1.com, that Red Bull should have been closer to McLaren – calling his car “not driveable” during qualifying. And, as the ideal lap times for each team have shown previously, there was more time available.

More reaction from qualifying at the Italian Grand Prix

 Winners and losers from the 2024 Italian Grand Prix qualifying

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But despite this, even with his Q2 lap that was almost four-tenths of a second better than his best Q3 lap, Verstappen was aiming for P7 at best at the Italian Grand Prix qualifying.

Mercedes and Ferrari were out of Red Bull’s reach and much further ahead was McLaren in a league of their own.

Red Bull’s Sector 1 was quite competitive thanks to Verstappen’s slightly higher top speed than McLaren. However, the Ferrari engines were the clear dominators of qualifying at Monza. Fernando Alonso managed to reach 354km/h with his Mercedes powered Aston Martin thanks to a slipstream from Oscar Piastri in his Q2 flying lap.

Max Verstappen’s Sector 2 lap in Q2 was competitive, but he didn’t manage to beat Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri. And in Sector 3, as we have seen, the time lost in both the Ascari Chicane and Parabolica was too significant.

If we analyse Max Verstappen’s Q2 lap in more detail against his Q3 lap, we can indeed see that Sergio Perez’s mistake in Lesmo 2 affected Max in this same corner.

The Mexican driver was just in front of him and the gravel dust made him lose focus and almost three tenths of a second at this spot. His cornering around Ascari also worsened between Q2 and Q3, although here the time loss was less than in Lesmo where he carried the best minimum speed corner in his Q2 lap.

Verstappen therefore faces a challenging race at the Italian Grand Prix, where the main objective will be to minimise damage with the Drivers’ Championship in mind.

Fighting for the podium should be his aspiration and for that he will have to beat Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz as well as George Russell and Lewis Hamilton, a complicated but not impossible mission for Max.

Lando Norris on the other hand has a great opportunity with team-mate Oscar Piastri as his biggest rival at the start, with both McLaren drivers looking to maximise the team’s points haul as the fight with Red Bull in the Constructors’ Championship gets ever closer.

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