LANDO NORRIS DEMANDS FIA FIX F1 ISSUE THAT IS 'A BIT SILLY' AFTER MONACO GRAND PRIX

Lando Norris has criticised the FIA for failing to deal with sticker problems at the Monaco Grand Prix. The McLaren star, Charles Leclerc and Sergio Perez were among the drivers inconvenienced by stickers coming off barriers during the race weekend.

Leclerc and Norris were both forced to pit during Saturday's first qualifying session after stickers came off the Armco barriers and latched onto their cars. Perez, meanwhile, claims to have lost two tenths by dodging a sticker during the lap which saw him suffer a surprise Q1 exit.

Before Sunday's race, Norris lashed out at F1's governing body for failing to deal with the issue, despite the fact it was raised at the driver's briefing on Friday.

"I had to pit to get it off," he 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.

"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 put another respectable points haul on the board in Monaco by taking fourth place in the Grand Prix. In his two prior races, the 24-year-old clinched his maiden F1 victory in Miami and came within a second of making it back-to-back wins in Emilia-Romagna.

This time he had to watch his team-mate step up to the podium as Oscar Piastri finished second behind Charles Leclerc, who notched a fairytale triumph in his home race.

Like Leclerc, Norris only had a short journey to compete in Monaco as he made the principality his home in 2021 - a move which the driver admits was motivated by money as the micronation 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."

2024-05-28T13:19:05Z dg43tfdfdgfd