Why Lando Norris Found It ‘very difficult’ to Maximise McLaren’s Potential in Austin

McLaren Battles Handling Struggles During US Grand Prix Practice

Friday practice at the Circuit of the Americas in Austin highlighted an uphill climb for McLaren as the team worked to keep pace with the front of the grid. Entering the United States Grand Prix weekend amid intense scrutiny over the competitive pecking order among Formula 1’s top four outfits, the second practice session (FP2) painted an uncharacteristic picture for the Woking-based squad. While mere fractions of a second split the front-runners—Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc led the field with just 0.189s separating the top three cars featuring Kimi Antonelli and Max Verstappen—McLaren sat firmly in fourth among the leading teams.

The timing sheets reflected a substantial gap to the summit. Lando Norris ended the second practice session in seventh position, trailing pacesetter Charles Leclerc by 1.082s, while teammate Oscar Piastri concluded the running just 0.014s behind in eighth. Compounding the situation, both papaya machines ended the day behind the Racing Bulls challenger driven by Liam Lawson. However, the headline lap times did not fully capture the baseline potential of the MCL40, as driver errors and handling inconsistencies disrupted what could have been significantly quicker single-lap efforts.

Norris Details Demands Behind the Wheel

Speaking after the second practice session, Lando Norris conceded that unlocking speed from the car demanded an unsustainable level of precision due to balance unpredictability. Explaining the dynamics in the cockpit, the driver outlined why extracting lap time remains an immense challenge.

It’s difficult, said Norris after the session. I think the pace is not bad. We seem to step away from Red Bull and Ferrari, probably Mercedes as well. So, we seem a little bit off comparing to them.

But the car is just very difficult to drive, like it has been for a long time, too difficult to be able to be consistent and to get a nice feeling consistently. The pace is not bad, it’s just very difficult to achieve it.

The British driver emphasized that the team is hovering just out of reach of seamless pace, forcing a high-risk approach to extract competitive times:

Just to get the car to be quick, we’re just a step behind. So to get the car to be quick, we have to try so hard to be perfect, and you cannot be perfect.

I mean, I’m sure everyone has similar problems in a way, but we’re just not quick enough yet easily to be there consistently.

Despite the Friday deficit, Norris expressed confidence that fine-tuning the mechanical and aerodynamic platform ahead of Saturday could salvage their trajectory:

I think we just need to make some small tweaks to the car, he said. It’s not like there’s anything crazy.

It’s just… it’s tough, and maybe at the minute our car handling is just a little bit on the difficult to achieve side, so maybe small things in a few directions can help us out. But the pace is there or thereabouts so we can still be optimistic.

Of course, we’re putting the car in the best position we know we can at the minute. But we’ll see what we’ve learned from today, what we can improve on, what little tweaks we can do, what can move it in that direction to make it a little bit nicer to drive. And we’ll go again.

Rob Marshall Backs Upgrades and Underlying Speed

Offering a contrasting, more upbeat assessment, McLaren Chief Technical Officer and Chief Designer Rob Marshall maintained that the team remains well-positioned to take the fight to Ferrari, Red Bull, and Mercedes. Marshall pointed out that sector times showed genuine front-running potential before isolated mistakes derailed complete runs.

I think we will, he said. We set a purple in P2 as well. We just didn’t finish the lap. It was a competitive lap up until the point where we made a mistake.

Okay, we made mistakes, but yeah, that was just one lap. I think going forward from here, we’ve got to be quite optimistic, really.

In addition to raw sector pace, McLaren gathered constructive data regarding a development package evaluated during the Austin track running. The team introduced altered front and rear brake duct “corner furniture” alongside diffuser adjustments, with Marshall confirming that these components operated precisely as computational modeling and wind-tunnel simulations had projected.

Yeah, we’re very pleased actually, said Marshall. I wouldn’t say it’s a tiny upgrade, but it’s really small parts that are kind of almost a bit of tuning, really. But they seemed to deliver quite well, so certainly a measurable benefit, and we think we see it in the stopwatch as well. So yeah, we’re quite pleased.

They were sort of test items, which we never really planned to race. But there was a secondary part of that brake stuff, which was really an aerodynamic gain, and sort of conditioning around the wheels and wake control, that sort of stuff. So we think that’s delivered for us.

Why This Matters

The gap between raw potential and drivability is a crucial storyline in the late-season championship battles. In Austin, where high-speed sweeps transition into low-speed, technical sectors, having a wide operational setup window is critical for tire life and race-stint management. If McLaren can refine its baseline setup overnight to eliminate the car’s nervousness, the confirmed gains from their diffuser and wake-control aerodynamic components could bring Norris and Piastri right back into contention for the top grid spots against Charles Leclerc and Max Verstappen on Saturday.

Frequently Asked Questions

Where did McLaren finish in Friday’s FP2 session at Austin?

Lando Norris finished in seventh position (P7), 1.082 seconds adrift of fastest driver Charles Leclerc, while Oscar Piastri ended the session in eighth (P8), just 0.014 seconds behind Norris.

What aerodynamic upgrades did McLaren bring to the United States Grand Prix?

McLaren introduced updated front and rear corner furniture along with diffuser modifications. According to Chief Technical Officer Rob Marshall, these components served primarily as aerodynamic test items aimed at wake control and conditioning around the wheels, producing measurable lap time improvements.

Why did Lando Norris find the car difficult to drive despite good underlying pace?

Norris explained that the car required near-flawless execution to extract speed, suffering from a narrow operating window that makes it difficult to maintain balance and achieve consistent laps over full runs.