McLaren is running a Senna tribute livery this weekend

Lando Norris says that he and his McLaren Formula 1 team must “keep focussed” as they head into a Monaco GP weekend which sees them among the favourites.

Victory for Norris in Miami and his close second place at Imola have indicated that McLaren is now a serious contender for wins at different types of venues.

However while Norris is optimistic he is cautions that nothing can be taken for granted this weekend, especially at such a unique circuit.

“I’m hopeful we can have a good result,” he said when asked by this writer about prospects for Monaco.

“And I think over the last few weeks, we’ve been a lot more competitive in terms of fighting against Ferrari and fighting against Red Bull.

“But because it’s so different, we can easily go one way or the other, it can easily look really good for us, or it might be that they have a trickier weekend or something. So I think everything is still to play for.

“And because it’s such a small track, you can easily say other teams are going to be up there as well, whether you’re going to have Mercedes back up there and Aston a bit more back up there.

“Especially in qualifying, you make a one-tenth or two-tenths mistake that’s a big loss around here. And it can easily mess up your whole weekend. So I think you still need to keep focused, and it’s still close. So we’re just concentrating on doing our job, because we’ve been doing a good job so far.”

The latest upgrade package improved the car’s performance in slower corners, suggested that it could be good in Monaco, but Norris downplayed that suggestion.

“It’s still our biggest weakness,” he said. “Even if you look to Imola, Turn 7, the chicane, was of our worst corners. I don’t think we’re bad, when we’re saying it’s our biggest weakness, we’re talking about maybe half a tenth at times, and that kind of thing.

“But Monaco, you set up only for slow-speed, and nothing else. And I think that’s where maybe it plays a little bit more back into our hands. Or not our hands, but it’s just not as far-fetched as what it is in some other circuits. 

“I mean, last year was not our not our best year in terms of delivering here in Monaco, but we’ve not been bad here in the past. And we’ve clearly improved a lot since then.

“We didn’t have our upgrade here last year. So a lot of things have improved since then, we’ve definitely improved slow-speed as well. So I’m hopeful. I’m hopeful that it can be a good weekend and I’d rather it stayed dry than rained, but maybe for fans of viewers, they before the rain. So yeah, we’ll see.”

Norris also said that having looked into the data from Imola there was nothing he or the team could have done that might have given him a chance to beat Verstappen.

“I think we had a pretty optimal race,” he said. “Especially when you look at it, I clearly had the best race pace in the second stint by a considerable margin. At the same time, if I pushed more, I would have ended up like Max [with tyre issues].

“It’s something you can’t define, there isn’t a yes or no answer. You win in one part, you’re going to lose in another part.

“So I think we gave it our all, I didn’t make any silly mistakes that cost me one second, or something like that. I never went off track, I didn’t have any of those things. 

“So just lost out too much in the first stint. And that was just down to a couple of different things, and just not quite having the pace compared to the Red Bull.

“But I think that’s where we say when we need to improve in some areas, it’s those kinds of conditions still, when it’s very hot.

“And rear degradation is an issue. If we can improve on that, then that’s our thing. But I think the team executed everything, well, I think I did a good job. So as much as it hurts, I think we did the best we could.”