It was certainly not the best start to the weekend for the papaya driver. Lando Norris wasn’t able to put together a very clean lap at the 5.513-kilometre Circuit of The Americas in Austin, managing “only” the fourth fastest time in sprint qualifying.
Sure, it’s still early, and there’s plenty of room for improvement. However, the English driver had hoped to be right in front of Max Verstappen after the three-week break. The Dutch driver took pole position with a great lap, sending an important signal in the world championship fight. Red Bull seems to have found some fixes to the issues from recent races and is ready to battle in both championships.
Lando Norris’s comments
At the end of sprint qualifying in Austin, Lando Norris spoke about his result, expressing some disappointment with his performance on track: “Not a great day,” commented the McLaren driver. “Honestly, I struggled all day with balance and setup. In a way, I’m happy with P4. It felt like it could have gone much worse, but my lap was shocking. It wasn’t all terrible though—it could’ve been worse, and it could’ve been better, so I accept it.” – the McLaren driver admitted.
“I hope to move forward [in the sprint], that’s my plan,” Lando Norris concluded. “In terms of pace, I think today we are where we deserve to be. My plan is to climb positions, but I have no idea how much we can do.”
In the Sprint Race, the papaya driver won’t even be able to count on help from Oscar Piastri to try to take points away from Max Verstappen. The Australian will start from sixteenth due to a track limits violation in SQ1.
It’s certainly not the start McLaren wanted, but the weekend is still long.
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