Monaco Podium Delight For Lando Norris

After not expecting much from the FORMULA 1 GRAND PRIX DE MONACO 2021 weekend, Lando Norris has gone home with yet another podium finish, a big haul of points, and moved into third place in the 2021 Formula 1 Driver’s Championship battle.

For his teammate Daniel Ricciardo it was a weekend to forget however, as the Australian was lapped by Norris and had to settle for 12th place, ending the teams run of having both drivers finish in the points in every race of 2021.

Surprise Podium For Lando Norris

After qualifying in fifth, Lando Norris wasn’t expecting a podium with overtaking so difficult, but with Charles Leclerc failing to start and Valtteri Bottas failing to finish, the Brit was there to capitalise.

“Awesome. Monaco podium! It’s pretty incredible, I never thought it could happen coming into this weekend at all, so I’m super, super happy. I’m proud of the team for what we’ve achieved this weekend. We’ve made some good progress. We’ve still got more work to do – it’s not like we can let-up now – but another trophy and a lot of points for us, which is pretty awesome. A big thanks to the whole team and everyone back at the factory as well for all the work they’re putting into it. It’s paying off, and I hope this is motivation to work even harder and keep bringing improvements,” said Norris.  

Disappointing Day For Daniel Ricciardo

It wasn’t just a day to forget for Daniel Ricciardo, it was a weekend to forget for the man who has tasted success on the streets of Monaco, and Baku just can’t come soon enough…

“This has just been a bit of a weekend to forget for me, unfortunately. The race was always going to be tricky after a difficult qualifying session yesterday and that’s how it turned out. I struggled a bit at the start on the Medium and that pretty much decided our race.

“The second stint on the Hard was encouraging and the lap-times really started to improve, but by that point there wasn’t much more I could do given how hard it is to pass here. I’ll just have to figure out what happened and just step away for a few days to switch off a little bit before going again in Baku.

“On the positive side, it was a great result for Lando and the team, so congratulations to everyone. It shows the pace is there in the car and that we’ve just got to work at unlocking it, but that will come with time and mileage,” added Ricciardo.

McLaren On The March

Team boss Andreas Seidl was delighted with his teams result at such an iconic circuit, as McLaren continued their strong start to the season.

“An iconic racetrack with an iconic Gulf livery and P3 in Monaco. What a Sunday afternoon. Congratulations – and a big thank you – to the entire team, especially to those at the MTC in development and production. Together with our colleagues at Mercedes HPP, they gave us a quick car this weekend. The race team here at the track did a great job ensuring we had a reliable car, strategy made all the right calls and we had excellent pit-stops. Monaco is a tough weekend for the whole organisation, but a big thank you to everyone in the team, who made this weekend possible.

“Lando was flying all weekend and gave us a great result. Daniel had a very tough one. We’ll put that behind us as quickly as possible. He was quick in Barcelona and had good speed in the second half of the race here – that’s what we’ll be taking to Azerbaijan. We’ll head home now, reset, recharge the batteries, and turn our thoughts to a very different street race in Baku,” concluded Seidl.

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