McLaren’s latest upgrade package appears to be delivering measurable improvements at the 2026 United States Grand Prix, but Lando Norris remains frustrated by the MCL40’s unpredictable handling. Despite encouraging indications of speed at the Circuit of The Americas, the British driver admitted that extracting consistent performance from the car remains extremely difficult, particularly during qualifying simulations.
Friday’s practice sessions did not provide McLaren with all the answers it wanted. Both Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri finished some distance from the fastest times, although their positions require careful interpretation because of the different programmes and tyre compounds used. Lando Norris, the reigning Formula 1 world champion, recorded the seventh-fastest time on hard tyres, making a direct comparison with drivers using soft tyres of limited value.
Beyond the timing screens, the central problem was McLaren’s difficulty delivering consistent performance on a single lap. While the MCL40 demonstrated flashes of competitiveness, Lando Norris struggled to reproduce that speed when it mattered.
“It was just difficult, really difficult,” Lando Norris admitted. “I think the pace itself isn’t bad, but it feels like we’re a step behind Red Bull and Ferrari, and probably Mercedes as well.”
Lando Norris struggles to find consistent qualifying pace in McLaren MCL40
The main issue to emerge at Austin was McLaren’s inability to reproduce its strongest performances consistently. Lando Norris demonstrated promising speed during the opening practice session, but transferring that potential into the afternoon’s qualifying simulations proved considerably more challenging.
During FP2, the McLaren driver produced a particularly competitive second sector before encountering oversteer at Turn 15, compromising one of his attempts on soft tyres.
“At the moment, it’s just difficult, pretty much impossible to put a lap together,” Lando Norris explained. “There are signs of good pace, but going into qualifying now and being able to repeat it on every lap, being able to do it when you need to, is too difficult.”
The MCL40 also appears to behave differently depending on the tyre compound. Lando Norris has been able to establish a more convincing balance on hard tyres, whereas the car seems more sensitive to setup adjustments and balance changes when running the softer compound.
That difference could help explain the difficulties experienced during the qualifying simulations, although it does not provide a definitive assessment of the car’s overall potential.
Why Lando Norris finds McLaren’s performance window so difficult to manage
Lando Norris identified the MCL40’s narrow operating window as one of the main areas requiring improvement. The challenge is not necessarily a complete lack of speed, but rather the difficulty of achieving the right balance consistently enough to exploit that speed.
“As has been the case for quite a long time now, it’s too difficult to be consistent and find a good feeling consistently. The pace isn’t bad; it’s just very difficult to achieve.”
The bumps at the Circuit of The Americas and the physical demands of its high-speed corners provide a particularly demanding test for a car that appears to require considerable precision from its driver.
However, Lando Norris stressed that the problem cannot be attributed solely to handling difficulties. To make the MCL40 fast, the driver is effectively required to deliver an almost perfect lap, leaving very little margin for error.
“To make the car fast, we have to push ourselves so hard to be perfect, and perfection doesn’t exist.”
That constant pursuit of the ideal lap makes the McLaren particularly demanding to drive, especially when balance changes can have a significant impact on confidence and performance.
Nevertheless, Lando Norris has not ruled out finding improvements before qualifying. He believes the solution may involve several relatively small adjustments rather than a radical change in direction.
“It’s not as though there’s anything crazy going on. Maybe our car just has a level of driveability that’s a little difficult to achieve. Small changes in different directions could help us. The pace is more or less there, so we can still be optimistic.”
McLaren’s hard-tyre long run offers hope for United States Grand Prix
While McLaren’s single-lap performance highlighted the car’s weaknesses, its race pace provided more encouraging signs. Lando Norris recorded one of the strongest average lap times during the long-run simulations while using the hard compound.
That performance suggests McLaren should not yet be discounted from the fight at Austin, despite the driver’s frustrations and a classification that initially appears disappointing.
However, the figures need to be considered in context. Different team programmes, fuel loads and power-unit operating modes can all have a substantial influence on lap times, making it difficult to draw firm conclusions from Friday’s race simulations.
Comparisons between tyre compounds also require caution. Pirelli indicated that the C2 hard tyre could be almost nine tenths of a second slower than the medium compound at Austin. If that difference applies under comparable conditions, it would be misleading to interpret Lando Norris’s strong average on the hard tyres as definitive evidence that McLaren possesses the fastest race car.
Without knowing the precise conditions in which each team completed its longer runs, the data remains interesting rather than conclusive.
Nevertheless, Austin appears to offer the MCL40 more favourable conditions than some recent Grands Prix. When McLaren finds a satisfactory balance, the car has demonstrated competitive potential, although the team still needs to understand how consistently that performance can be reproduced over a single lap.
A more representative qualifying simulation, ideally with comparable tyres and programmes across the leading teams, will provide a clearer indication of McLaren’s true position.
McLaren confirms Austin aerodynamic upgrades are delivering gains
Despite Lando Norris’s difficult Friday, McLaren’s technical leadership offered a more positive assessment of the team’s development work.
The Woking-based team arrived at Austin with a series of relatively small aerodynamic upgrades, including modifications around the braking system and the management of airflow around the wheels. The objective is to improve control of the wake generated by the car and optimise its overall aerodynamic behaviour.
McLaren technical director Rob Marshall indicated that the modifications had delivered identifiable benefits. Although the changes are relatively modest in size, they appear to have produced a measurable improvement, including a gain in lap time.
That represents an encouraging development for a team attempting to close the gap to its rivals without fundamentally changing the MCL40’s design.
Rob Marshall described the updates as small modifications capable of providing a measurable benefit and a worthwhile improvement in performance. Looking ahead to the remainder of the weekend, the technical director expressed confidence in McLaren’s prospects.
“From here onwards, we should be fairly optimistic.”
McLaren therefore believes its Austin upgrade package is functioning as intended. The remaining question is how effectively those technical gains can be converted into more consistent performance during qualifying and the Grand Prix itself.
McLaren faces important setup decisions before Austin qualifying
The work carried out overnight will be crucial as McLaren searches for a better compromise between outright speed and driveability. The MCL40’s underlying potential does not appear to be the main concern, but accessing that performance consistently remains a significant challenge.
Lando Norris’s encouraging long run on hard tyres offers some hope for the race, although it does not eliminate the uncertainty surrounding McLaren’s single-lap competitiveness. With Charles Leclerc setting the pace for Ferrari in FP2, the British team faces strong competition from several rivals.
For McLaren, the priority is to turn Friday’s encouraging technical findings into a complete performance package. The upgrades appear to be producing the intended benefits, but Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri still need a car that allows them to exploit those improvements with greater confidence and consistency.
Only a more representative qualifying simulation will establish whether the new components have genuinely reduced McLaren’s deficit to its leading competitors. Until then, the MCL40 remains a car with promising speed but a demanding operating window, leaving the team with important work to complete before the decisive stages of the United States Grand Prix weekend.
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