Lando Norris believes McLaren’s pace so far at the 2026 F1 United States GP weekend is “not bad“, but admitted that on Friday’s practice sessions at the Circuit of The Americas, it was “too difficult” to consistently extract that pace from the MCL40.
Norris: McLaren F1 car “difficult to drive” on Friday of 2026 United States GP
Although the headline times, especially from FP1, looked quite respectable for McLaren, with Norris just under a quarter of a second of Charles Leclerc’s best time, things got a bit tougher in the second practice session, as the McLaren duo fell to seventh and eighth, over a second off Leclerc’s benchmark.
“It was difficult, it was difficult,” was Norris’ plain response when asked about his Friday in Austin. “I think the pace is not bad, we seem to be a 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, but like it has been for a long time, it’s too difficult to be able to be consistent, to get a nice feeling consistently. The pace is not bad, it’s just very difficult to achieve it.”
Norris damning assessment: “To be quick, we have to be perfect”
Continuing a theme both Norris and team-mate Oscar Piastri have been mentioning for a few races now, McLaren’s car seems to be on a ‘knife-edge’ all the time, which makes it hard for drivers to have full confidence in the machinery under them to reproduce that pace consistently.
The World Champion had gone purple in the qualifying simulation through Sector 2, until the car was snapping horribly just before Turn 16. He had to abort the attempt.
“It’s not drivability, let’s say, it’s just to get the car to be quick, we’re just a step behind.
“To get the car to be quick, we just have to try so hard to be perfect and you cannot be perfect. I’m sure everyone has similar problems in a way, but we’re just not quick enough yet, easily, to be there consistently.”
Marshall “very pleased” with McLaren’s upgrades despite difficult Friday at the 2026 F1 United States GP
The Woking-based squad brought what is the first part of a phased upgrade package to Austin, with a revised front- and rear-end geometry and a new diffuser.
Despite Norris’ apparent disgruntlement at the car’s behaviour following track action at COTA on Friday, Rob Marshall, the team’s Chief Technical Officer and Chief Designer, said he was “very pleased” with the initial assessment of the upgrades, which he classified as “almost tuning” instead of actual full-on changes and new parts:
“We’re very pleased, actually. We bought a few, sort of, I wouldn’t say as a tiny upgrade, but it’s really small parts that are almost a bit tuning, really,” he said.
“But they seem to deliver quite well, so it’s certainly a measurable benefit.
“And we think we see it in the stopwatch as well, so we’re quite pleased.”
Marshall praises “test items” that formed part of the upgrade package
When asked if the new upgrades also had in mind the feeling for the drivers, given the difficulties they faced on Friday, Marshall explained that both cars had been running some “test items” regarding the braking systems, which delivered extra gains that meant they became essential for the race-spec car:
“They were kind of test items, which we hadn’t really planned to race, but the secondary part of that brake stuff was really an aerodynamic gain and sort of conditioning around the wheels and weight control, that sort of stuff, so we think that’s delivered for us.“
McLaren “quite optimistic” it will fight for pole at the 2026 F1 United States GP
Much like Norris, Marshall believes the underlying pace is there in the MCL40, and remains “quite optimistic” that the team will be in the fight for pole in Texas, assuming it can correct the mistakes that happened on their FP2 qualifying simulations:
“I think we will [fight for pole]. I mean, we set a purple in FP2 as well, we just didn’t finish the lap.
“It was a competitive lap up until the point where we made a mistake.We made mistakes, but yeah, that was just one lap. I think going forward from here we’ve got to be quite optimistic really.”
