Norris reflects on Qualifying ‘struggle’ in Austin as he suggests there was ‘no chance’ of pole position

Lando Norris has been reflecting on what caused McLaren to “struggle” more in Qualifying for the United States Grand Prix, with the Briton – who took P2 – suggesting that he had “no chance” of taking pole position.

After initially displaying good pace by leading first practice when the weekend at the Circuit of The Americas got underway, Norris just missed out on the top spot to Max Verstappen in Friday’s Sprint Qualifying session later in the day.

The gap was wider, however, in Saturday’s Qualifying, with Verstappen’s pole-setting effort of 1m 32.510s proving to be almost three tenths quicker than Norris’ time. Further back, the other McLaren of Oscar Piastri had an even trickier day in sixth place.

Looking back on the session after jumping out of the car, Norris gave his take on the possible reasons why the papaya team had a slightly tougher outing.

“I improved by a tenth or half a tenth,” Norris said of his final effort in Q3. “It was a bit more of a struggle today for whatever reason.

“Yesterday, it was just quite comfortable, and I don’t know if it’s just that everyone else has improved a bit or the wind today hurt us a bit more, but we were both struggling quite a bit more today just to put the laps in and be as quick as this guy [Verstappen].

“We were pushing and I’m still happy with P2. It could have been worse, but there was no chance we could have gotten pole today.”

Saturday has also proven challenging for McLaren in the Sprint, with both Norris and Piastri finding themselves out of the running on Lap 1 after being caught up in a first corner melee.

As such, Norris is hoping for a much cleaner start when Sunday’s Grand Prix gets underway.

“Just don’t get hit is my clear thought for tomorrow,” the 25-year-old conceded. “I look forward to hopefully having a good race with Max. We’ve had some good ones in the past, so I’m looking forward to it again.”