{"id":713098,"date":"2026-06-03T18:19:13","date_gmt":"2026-06-03T18:19:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/713098\/"},"modified":"2026-06-03T18:19:13","modified_gmt":"2026-06-03T18:19:13","slug":"mclaren-and-lando-norris-name-big-favourite-for-monaco-gp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/713098\/","title":{"rendered":"McLaren and Lando Norris name big favourite for Monaco GP"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Lando Norris and McLaren team principal Andrea Stella are convinced Ferrari head into this weekend&#8217;s Monaco Grand Prix as the firm favourites for victory.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>Following the introduction of new regulations for this season, Mercedes has so far dominated, with George Russell opening the campaign with a win in Australia, followed by team-mate Kimi Antonelli taking the chequered flag in China, Japan, Miami and Canada.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>Antonelli holds a 43-point lead over Russell, with Ferrari duo Charles and Lewis Hamilton a further 13 and 16 points adrift, respectively. Mercedes, meanwhile, is 72 points clear of the Scuderia in the constructors&#8217; standings.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>Yet the nature of the SF-26, in combination with the tight, twisty streets of the Principality, <a href=\"https:\/\/racingnews365.com\/why-ferrari-and-lewis-hamilton-can-prove-masters-of-monaco\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">should play into the hands of Ferrari and its drivers<\/a>.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Monaco is a very different track,&#8221; said Norris, speaking to the media, including RacingNews365. &#8220;To really wait and see how we&#8217;re going to be in Barcelona is something I&#8217;m excited for.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Monaco was also a track that was decent to us last year, but honestly, I think the Ferrari will be on pole in Monaco. Their low-speed performance is far better than everyone else.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;But I look forward to Monaco, because it&#8217;s Monaco. I had success there last year, it was one of my best weekends, most exciting weekends, but in the places where we know we&#8217;re struggling, it&#8217;s not something that gives me confidence to say we&#8217;re going to be incredible, but you never know.&#8221;\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>[Article continues below]\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\tStella endorses Norris<\/p>\n<p>Stella feels Ferrari&#8217;s performance over the previous weekend in Canada highlighted their superiority in certain areas, in particular, through sector one at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, a low-speed section with kerbs.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>With Ferrari possessing &#8220;a competitive chassis in the corners,&#8221; Stella added: &#8220;Normally these features tend to reward at a track like Monaco.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;In addition to that, we saw in Canada the Ferrari lose time in the straights, but you don&#8217;t have much of that in Monaco. So, I think Lando is right in saying Ferrari, quite possibly, is the favourite car for the pole position in Monaco.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We can definitely say that at the current level of development, the McLaren is probably best suited for low-speed corners rather than medium and high-speed corners, where we see Ferrari and Mercedes being superior, so this should set us in a good position for Monaco.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;At the same time, in Monaco, there are a few medium to high-speed corners. If you think that Casino is more than 150kph; Tabac is 170, 180; the Swimming Pool [complex] is more than 200, so actually, medium, high-speed performance is important in Monaco.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;But some of the low speed is extremely low speed, and in a way, it is in its own range, like if you think of the slow-speed section in the second sector.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;So, it is one of its own. I definitely see Ferrari as probably the favourite, but McLaren can be competitive, and we may try and repeat the achievement of last year in Monaco.&#8221;\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lando Norris and McLaren team principal Andrea Stella are convinced Ferrari head into this weekend&#8217;s Monaco Grand Prix&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":713099,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,827,830,828,831,829,826,813,823,825,806,805,824,803,804,822,85],"class_list":["post-713098","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-daniel-ricciardo","tag-f1-calendar","tag-f1-live","tag-f1-results","tag-f1-standings","tag-ferrari","tag-formula-1","tag-lewis-hamilton","tag-max-verstappen","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motorsport","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-racing","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/713098","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=713098"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/713098\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/713099"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=713098"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=713098"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=713098"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}