Norris “must be very frustrated” over Italian GP battle – Albon

Alexander Albon said Lando Norris must have been “very frustrated” by their battle at the Italian Grand Prix, as he failed to overtake the Williams driver.

The McLaren driver made several attempts to overtake, but struggled to match his rival’s speed on the straights. Albon said that advantage made up for Williams’ clear weaknesses elsewhere, such as in the final corner Alboreto (formerly known as Parabolica).

“We were really weak in the last corner,” said Albon. “We were actually good through Ascari but slow in turn 11 and they would always catch me out through there. The deg was huge.

“The laps to the grid we thought ‘this is going to be a really tough race’. We didn’t have the pace today, but we had the straight-line speed and that was what kept Lando behind.

“He must be very frustrated, I would be. We were just about good enough in turn one on the brakes that even though they have more downforce than us, it’s not a clean overtake for them. You could see every time they tried to out-brake me they tended to go wide.”

Many of Norris’ attacks came at Rettifilo, and on lap 38 the pair almost collided at the chicane. Norris pulled alongside and tried to find the outside space, but that quickly shut so he used the escape road and initially felt that he was “forced off”.

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But Norris had no complaints over his rival’s performance. “You have to be elbows-out sometimes,” said the McLaren driver.

“Credit to Alex,” Norris continued. “He did drive a very good race, he didn’t make any mistakes which is annoying.

“I tried, we had good battles but they were too quick for us in the straights and even with DRS I [only] catch maybe two or three kilometres an hour more than what he’s doing.”

On fast circuits with few low-speed corners Williams usually expect to be much quicker, but track temperatures were as high as 45C and Albon thinks that was a factor in them struggling to pull clear of Norris.

“We still see our weaknesses,” he said. “We are low downforce. We are better than we were last year, but especially when the track gets hot and the deg is high, we really struggle.

“This was a race where we struggled on a track that should suit us. I think if the track was 20 degrees cooler we would have been really fast.”

Williams have consolidated seventh in the constructors’ championship with Albon’s six points at Monza.

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