Lando Norris and McLaren hit Monza this weekend riding a wave. Two wins on the bounce, two poles, a car transformed by upgrades and a title fight suddenly no longer a fantasy.
Andrea Stella is doing everything he can to keep that wave from turning into a tidal expectation.
The McLaren team principal cut a measured figure ahead of the Italian Grand Prix, reminding anyone prepared to anoint the MCL40 as an all‑round monster that Monza is a very different beast to the Hungaroring and Zandvoort, where Norris has just torn up the field.
From high-downforce masterpieces to the Temple of Speed
Hungary and the Netherlands flattered everything McLaren have done right with this car. High downforce. Long, loaded corners. A layout that rewards balance, grip and aerodynamic sophistication. Since the major upgrade package landed, the MCL40 has looked at home in that environment, and Norris has cashed in.
Fourth in the standings on 159 points, 83 behind championship leader Kimi Antonelli, Norris is still chasing, but the direction of travel is obvious. Mercedes, once the reference, have been dragged into a fight.
After Zandvoort, Antonelli admitted as much, conceding Mercedes were “clearly not the fastest car any more on the grid.” Norris, still buzzing on team radio, fired back a message of intent: “The fight’s still on, let’s keep going.”
Momentum, then, is orange. Monza might not care.
A different regime
Stella has been around long enough to know that form at one type of circuit can evaporate at another.
“The real approach we have is just one race at a time,” he told media, including RacingNews365. “There’s not much more you can influence than just maximising what’s next available, and the next race will be Monza.
“And if we think about the demand of Zandvoort and Hungary, and then we think about the demand of Monza, we are in a completely different regime.”
He’s right. Monza strips a car bare. Lowest drag configuration of the year. Full throttle for roughly 80 per cent of the lap. Long straights, savage stops into tight chicanes. No place to hide on the straights, nowhere to disguise braking frailties.
For a car that has thrived in high-downforce trim, this is the exam paper from another subject.
“So I think if we can confirm our improvements in Monza,” Stella added, “then I would say that the answer to your question is, ‘Yes, we can look with some optimism at the remainder of the season’.”
That’s the line. Monza as proof, or reality check.
Norris refuses to gloss over the weak spots
Norris, despite the champagne and headlines, has not been seduced by the last two Sundays.
“Despite the win, I’m not fully satisfied,” he said after Zandvoort. “We still have weaknesses, particularly in the slow-speed corners, and we need to improve if we want to fight for the championship.”
Two victories haven’t blurred his view of the car’s limitations. Slow-speed turns still bite. The question now is whether those issues spill into the low-drag, heavy‑braking world of Monza.
Stella has already circled the problem areas.
“But first of all, we need to go to Monza and see that our car can express a good performance on the long straights,” he explained. “And we know that drag is not necessarily a point of strength of our car, for instance. There’s a lot of braking, which is not necessarily a point of strength of our car.
“So there are a lot of things that we need to confirm…”
Those are not throwaway caveats. At Monza, drag is lap time. Braking is survival. If the MCL40 is weak in both, the feel‑good surge of the last two races could meet a hard limit.
The real test of McLaren’s revival
What McLaren do know is this: give them high downforce and a flowing layout, and they can fight anyone.
“So far,” Stella said, “I think we can confirm that when we are at high-downforce circuits with this sort of layout, then we can fight for victories.”
Hungary proved it. Zandvoort underlined it. The car works, the driver is in form, the garage is confident.
Monza asks a sharper question. Is this a car reborn across the board, or a specialist weapon that shines only in a certain window?
By Sunday evening at the Temple of Speed, the answer will say a lot about whether Norris is just on a hot streak, or genuinely on the march towards Antonelli and the title.
