Lando Norris says McLaren struggled with MCL40 handling in Austin as rivals look strong

By Vancouver Television Sports Desk

Lando Norris attributed McLaren’s difficult Friday in Austin to handling problems in the MCL40, despite what he described as reasonable outright speed during practice for the United States Grand Prix. After FP2, Norris said the team appeared to be “a little bit off” versus the pace-setting top teams, but added that the car’s difficulty to drive consistently was the main obstacle to translating speed into lap time.

At the end of FP2, McLaren was fourth in the standings order: Norris was P7 and Oscar Piastri P8. The tightest margin among the top three was just 0.189s, with Charles Leclerc edging out Kimi Antonelli and Max Verstappen. From the front-runner Ferrari to Norris in P7, however, there was a larger gap of 1.082s, and Piastri was only 0.014s behind Norris, reinforcing that both papaya cars were close together but still well off the very front.

Norris said the handling made it hard to extract performance without needing perfection. “It’s difficult,” he said after the session, adding that while “the pace is not bad,” the car was “very difficult to drive,” leaving him unable to build a consistent feel lap after lap. He further explained that to get the car quick, McLaren had to push itself into highly demanding conditions: “we have to try so hard to be perfect, and you cannot be perfect.”

Despite the concerns, Norris indicated the team was planning to respond with set-up changes overnight. He said the required work did not appear to be “crazy,” describing “small tweaks” aimed at improving how the car behaves, while expressing cautious optimism because the pace was “there or thereabouts.”

McLaren Chief Technical Officer and Chief Designer Rob Marshall offered a more constructive assessment of the Friday picture. He said the team could remain “in the fight” on Saturday and referenced a competitive lap run where he believed McLaren had set a strong benchmark before an error prevented it from being completed. “We set a purple in P2 as well. We just didn’t finish the lap,” Marshall said.

Marshall also pointed to upgrades that arrived in Austin and appeared to function as intended. He said revised front and rear “corner furniture,” along with diffuser-related changes, were focused on small, precision elements of aerodynamic tuning. “We’re very pleased actually,” Marshall said, describing the updates as “small parts” that delivered a “measurable benefit,” and noting that a secondary component tied to braking-area work was expected to create an aerodynamic gain, alongside effects related to conditioning around the wheels and wake control.

With McLaren using both its Friday learning and overnight set-up work, Norris and Marshall both framed the next step as improving the car’s drivability and consistency—so that the team’s pace, already evident at points in practice, can be sustained into the remainder of the Grand Prix weekend.