2021 Monaco Grand Prix – Free Practice "We'll get back out there on Saturday and have some fun"

Circuit de Monaco, Thursday 20 May

Hear from McLaren Formula 1 drivers Lando Norris and Daniel Ricciardo, and Executive Director, Racing, Andrea Stella after practice for the Monaco Grand Prix.

LANDO NORRIS, #4

 FP1 1m13.236s (+0.749s)    31 laps  7th 
 FP2  1m12.379s (+0.695s)   24 laps  6th 

“A decent day, I’m happy. I think we made some good progress between the sessions. It’s very tight, as expected, especially to the guys behind, but we also look not far off the guys ahead. We have a chance to capitalise on mistakes that they might make. I feel comfortable in the car but there’s definitely some more to unlock going into Saturday, and into qualifying. So, tomorrow we can spend the day looking over the data to see what improvements we can make for the rest of the weekend.”

Monaco Grand Prix Circuit de Monaco

1 Jan 1970

Monaco Grand Prix
Monaco Grand Prix
Monaco Grand Prix
Monaco Grand Prix

DANIEL RICCIARDO, #3

 FP1 1m14.281s (+1.794s)   36 laps  15th  
 FP2  1m13.257s (+1.573s)  26 laps 15th

“Back on the streets! It’s nice to be back here for sure, it’s a good track and I love it. Despite that, today wasn’t a great day, we’ve got some work to do. We’ve got the evening and all day tomorrow to work it out, but this is why I love Monaco, you get a day off to really get into it, reset, and have a look at where we’re missing out.

“I think by Saturday I’ll be all good and we’ll figure it out, but today it just felt like a little bit of a stalemate at times. We’ve got some work to do, but the sun is shining, and we’ll get back out there on Saturday and have some fun.”

ANDREA STELLA, Executive Director, Racing

“It is a great feeling to be back in Monaco, it’s full of history – but it’s also a very challenging place to run Formula 1 cars! With these shortened FP1 and FP2 sessions you always feel that you’re fighting the clock for the time to test things – and here there’s quite a lot to test in terms of set-up and understanding the tyres.

“Overall, we were able to get through our plan and we’re happy with the data we’ve acquired. There’s work to be done tonight and tomorrow to improve the car to make sure we’re ready for qualifying which is, of course, always important here.”

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