Lando Norris will have ‘behind the scenes’ strategy talks with McLaren

Lando Norris said he and his McLaren team will have strategy talks after appearing to disagree during the Monaco Grand Prix.

With the Red Bulls and Ferraris racing away in the distance and Fernando Alonso slowing the pack up behind, Norris found himself in a head-to-head battle with Mercedes’ George Russell.

Having qualified ahead of Russell, Norris would go on to finish the race behind him after McLaren failed to make the most of their strategy choices.

They were undercut for the second pit stop when Russell stopped a lap earlier for Norris to switch to the hards from the inters then when the red flag came out for Mick Schumacher’s crash, Norris stayed on the hard while many others used the opportunity for a free pit stop to switch to the mediums.

Norris was heard becoming increasingly frustrated over the team radio and after being told not to push too hard in case it rained later in the race, the McLaren driver pointed to the fact that if Alonso was slowing everyone up then there was no danger from behind.

“I’m obviously under no threat from behind, right? So surely I can just push now and try and make him make a mistake ahead? If you don’t want me to push what the hell am I meant to do, just sit here?” Norris said over the team radio.

Later in the race, he then asked to pit for medium tyres and was one lap away from overtaking Russell on his way to the fastest lap extra point.

The boy done good! 🙌 @LandoNorris pic.twitter.com/m1hzwGGPtL

— McLaren (@McLarenF1) May 31, 2022

After the race, the Brit conceded that there would be talks back at the McLaren Technology Centre about what they could have done better.

“There’s things we’ll talk about, about the strategy, I don’t think we did a perfect job,” he said, as reported by motorsport.com.

“And of course, there’s always things to work on and improve on. Something for us to talk about back behind the scenes, and back in MTC, and not something to talk about now. But yeah, things to…