08/09/2021
NEWS STORY
Lando Norris: "Really looking forward to heading to Monza, especially after a tough weekend in Zandvoort. I'm looking forward to bouncing back and hopefully being where we deserve to be, scoring more points and qualifying a bit higher up the grid. We'll be working hard to do that. It's another awesome track. We've been really spoilt with this triple-header, racing at three tracks that are extremely cool. Monza is a track where we've had good results in the past, so hopefully we can have another good weekend."
Daniel Ricciardo: "Monza is a good race and a fun weekend. It's an awesome track to drive and great for racing as well. It often provides some good opportunities. If you're quicker than the car ahead and you've got speed, you can normally overtake, so I'm definitely looking forward to that.
"Italy is always fun, great food and another circuit with an amazing atmosphere. It's also the second sprint weekend, which will be pretty intense. We've got one practice to get into it, and then we're into quali. It's definitely a higher pressure situation for us, so we'll need to hit the ground running, get up to speed quickly and take away some points. I'm looking forward to it."
Piers Thynne, Executive Director, Operations: "Heading into the back end of this triple-header certainly presents a riskier time of year from an operational perspective. That risk manifested itself at Spa with Lando's accident during Q3 on Saturday. This created some challenges for us as a team. However, what was fantastic was the level of collaboration across the operational teams during that Saturday night through Sunday and into Monday as the damage and impact on us was understood. The situation really underpins our teamwork and collective ability to find solutions.
"The real push at the back end of a triple-header is not only to ensure the right level of performance is there, but when you've had an accident like we've had, it's to ensure that you're never in a place where it's going to compromise race stock.
"We had a challenging weekend at Zandvoort coming away with a single point, which is still important for the Constructors' Championship. Monza is a completely different circuit, and we hope the characteristics will play more into our favour. The team is working hard this week to ensure we're in optimum shape and that we go into this event with the right levels of stock.
"Sprint races are still fairly new to us. We approached the first sprint event at Silverstone as a base to understand the format and look at various strategies for a different operational approach. From our learnings, we decided to keep our pre-existing approach going into Monza, with the additional stock in the system being able to support the team and enable us to react if there is an issue. It's going to be interesting to see how this different format plays out at one of the most exciting tracks on the calendar.
"We also need to look beyond Monza, because the quality and the aero care of our parts are paramount and there is very much performance in that. Looking into the flyaway races where we can't get at the stock quite as frequently as we can when it's in Europe, we're working on a number of sets that will stay with the team from Russia for the back end of the season. Therefore, we've got to push hard through this week and in the coming weeks up to Russia. It's always a balance between risk, performance and quality."
Autodromo Nazionale Monza
Race laps: 53
Circuit length: 5.793km/3.600 miles
Total race distance: 306.720km/190.587 miles
Number of corners: 11 (seven right, four left)
Allocated tyre compounds: Hard: C2, Medium: C3 and Soft: C4