Lando Norris narrowly beat Charles Leclerc to pole in the dying moments of qualifying for the Monaco Grand Prix.
The Briton will have his first big opportunity to win a race around the principality, having broken the lap record around the track with a 1:09.954s and an average speed of 105mph around the track.
Norris will need to overcome home hero Charles Leclerc, who starts alongside him on the grid and is gunning for a second win in a row after achieving his dream of winning last year.
The Briton beat Leclerc to pole by a margin of 0.109 seconds around the two-mile circuit, but journalist Michael Schmidt has revealed what McLaren team principal Andrea Stella told them that led to the pole, speaking on the AMuS YouTube channel.
Andrea Stella reveals how tyres were ‘critical’ in Monaco GP qualifying
Leclerc had been fastest in every practice session leading up to qualifying, despite Ferrari’s weakness being in slow corners. But Norris managed to extract more time in critical moments thanks to a tyre strategy by McLaren.
McLaren chose to give their drivers two runs at the end of qualifying, with both Norris and Oscar Piastri rolling out of the pits with four minutes left on the clock.
It gave them time to have one push lap, then a cool-down run, then another push lap at the end of the session, whereas everyone else elected to do one push lap on their new tyres.
Stella believes that was the wrong approach because of how ‘critical’ the C6 tyre is when it’s new, a specification of tyre that has only been run at the last two races so far in 2025.
“Andrea Stella just told us that the C6 tyre were a bit critical when new. It’s almost better to rub off the first layer of rubber, have a cool down lap, and then it was actually the faster tyre than the medium,” said Schmidt.
McLaren exposed to new tyre rules at Monaco
The driver who starts from pole has only missed out on winning five times in the last 21 years, so Norris has a good chance of winning the race.
This year sees new rules being adopted by F1 in reaction to last year’s procession, due to an early red flag effectively cancelling out pit stops.
Now drivers must pit at least twice in the race, putting more focus on strategy and will likely force the driver to push harder.
This should add to the risk of crashing, although for Norris and McLaren, they will want to avoid making any decisions that could jeopardise their win given Ferrari will likely be aggressive with Leclerc.
