McLaren hit by pace and reliability blow in Monaco

McLaren’s 1000th Formula 1 Grand Prix weekend started badly in Monaco, with Lando Norris stopped by an electrical shutdown in second practice and Oscar Piastri only seventh after saying the car was still around a second off the pace.

The biggest immediate problem came in FP2, when Norris pulled up at the Nouvelle Chicane after just eight laps. McLaren later confirmed the issue was electrical, but had not identified the exact cause by the end of Friday. Piastri became the team’s only representative for most of the session and finished seventh, 1.062 seconds behind Lewis Hamilton’s Ferrari.

Piastri said the larger concern was not a single incident but the underlying speed of the MCL40. Oscar Piastri, McLaren driver, said: “Today was certainly a tough day for the team. We’re not where we want to be, and the gap to the front is larger than we had hoped for.” He said the team had made only limited progress through the day, improving from “a second and a half off to a second off.”

That left McLaren with a familiar Monaco problem ahead of the most important session of the weekend. Track position is critical at this circuit, and Piastri admitted there was no obvious fix waiting to be found overnight. He said the team needed to go through the data because “as it stands, we are simply not quick enough,” adding that there was “no single solution” that would transform the car.

Norris struck a similar tone after losing valuable running on a circuit where laps are especially important. Norris, McLaren driver, said: “Tricky day. We’re clearly off the pace and need to find time all across the lap.” On the stoppage, he added: “The car simply turned off, so we need to investigate what happened there.”

Rob Marshall, McLaren Chief Technical Officer and Chief Designer, said the team had not yet had enough time to determine exactly what caused Norris’ shutdown. He said the performance picture was at least clearer, with McLaren struggling in the opening part of the lap before becoming “a bit more competitive” in sectors two and three. Marshall said tyre temperature could be part of the issue, although he stressed there was still work to do to understand it properly.

That combination of missing pace and interrupted running left McLaren with limited optimism for the rest of the weekend. The team said it was not currently in a position to fight the top three teams in Monaco, while Norris warned that “realistically it’s going to be difficult to compete at the front of the field this weekend based on where we are compared to the competition.”