Lando Norris demands FIA fix F1 issue that is ‘a bit silly’ after Monaco Grand Prix
Lando Norris narrowly missed out on the podium at Sunday’s Monaco Grand Prix and has criticized the FIA for not addressing sticker problems that disrupted the race weekend. The McLaren star, along with Charles Leclerc and Sergio Perez, was inconvenienced by stickers coming off the barriers.
During Saturday’s first qualifying session, both Norris and Leclerc had to pit to remove stickers that had latched onto their cars. Perez claimed he lost two-tenths of a second avoiding a sticker, contributing to his unexpected Q1 exit.
Before Sunday’s race, Norris expressed his frustration with F1’s governing body for not resolving the issue, despite it being raised at Friday’s drivers’ briefing. “I had to pit to get it off,” Norris vented. “It just shouldn’t happen in Formula One. It’s a bit silly in my opinion, we said it would happen yesterday and they said they were going to fix it but obviously it wasn’t fixed. It’s a shame that you have to get lucky, I was lucky that I had enough time [to remove the sticker] otherwise it would have ruined my qualifying and my whole weekend.”
Norris emphasized that the problem could ruin a race. “There is nothing I can do. It can only ruin your race at the minute. They need to come up with a better solution than just stickers because of course we are touching the wall and all this stuff, but it’s not acceptable that this can ruin your whole weekend, just for some stickers and things like that. They need to find a better solution.”
Despite his pre-race anger, Norris finished fourth in the Grand Prix, adding a respectable points haul to his record. In the previous two races, the 24-year-old secured his maiden F1 victory in Miami and nearly achieved back-to-back wins in Emilia-Romagna, missing out by less than a second.
This time, Norris watched his teammate Oscar Piastri step onto the podium, finishing second behind Charles Leclerc, who won his home race.
Like Leclerc, Norris had a short journey to Monaco, having moved to the principality in 2021. He admitted that the move was financially motivated, as Monaco does not collect personal income tax. “I’m moving to Monaco for the reasons you probably expect,” Norris said at the time. “It’s something that obviously a lot of drivers go to do and especially, with how racing is, I think we’ve seen for other drivers how quickly things can also go downhill. Of course, I’ll understand and there’s going to be some [criticism] for sure. People do many things in life for money. This is just another one.”