McLaren was the big disappointment of Las Vegas qualifying. It’s well-known by now that the MCL38 doesn’t perform well in low temperatures, but free practice sessions had given hope of a real chance to fight for at least the first two rows. However, in Q3, all the weaknesses of the Woking car in these conditions emerged, with Lando Norris ending up in sixth place and teammate Oscar Piastri down in eighth.
When it came time for the usual interviews, the British driver took a sarcastic tone toward those who believe McLaren should always be the benchmark or that it had cheated in the past to achieve certain performances: “Well, it’s incredible what happened today considering we have by far the fastest car, right? Maybe the water in the tires didn’t work or something like that?”
Speaking more seriously, he analyzed the issues faced on the Las Vegas street circuit: “Let’s not talk about the rear wing or anything else; we know well that our car doesn’t adapt well to extremely low-grip conditions like we have here. To be competitive, we have to push everything to the limit, but it’s not easy.”
“It’s a challenge because you fix one problem, and another pops up. Maybe it wasn’t our best Q3; I made a couple of small mistakes, but they’re very hard to avoid. It was just too difficult to put together a clean lap. I’m trying to go faster, but at the same time, I’m trying not to make mistakes,” he added.
Keeping the championship alive seems increasingly difficult for him, as leader Max Verstappen starts in fifth position. The two are currently separated by 62 points, and Verstappen only needs to retain a 60-point lead to clinch his fourth title. However, Norris doesn’t seem particularly interested in these calculations at the moment.
“Whether he wins tomorrow or not, it won’t change anything for me. He’s very likely to win the championship, but I’m here to race and do my best, whether Max finishes ahead or not. I think we have a chance to beat him tomorrow, but I’ll just do my best as I do in every race, and whatever happens, happens.”
When asked if he would be proud of his season even if the title fight ends like this, he replied: “Of course. I’m still the one fighting Max, so I’m proud it’s me and not someone else. Certainly, I would have liked to extend the fight, but we lost the championship in the first six races. That’s when Max dominated, and Red Bull was too far ahead, creating a gap that was too difficult to close. So I’m proud that it’s us and no one else keeping it alive up to this point.”
With the drivers’ title hunt seemingly compromised, tomorrow’s focus will be on at least limiting the damage against Ferrari, which seems to have an opportunity to close the gap in the constructors’ standings. The two Ferraris will start second and fourth, and if they manage to further reduce the 36-point deficit, things could get quite complicated.
“At the moment, it seems that way. Maybe things will go a bit better tomorrow with the hard tires. This year, we’ve had graining issues in every race, especially with the softer compounds. It’s likely to happen with the medium tires too, but with the hard ones, hopefully, it’ll be better. Managing the front tires is our weakness, and we haven’t been able to address it as I would have liked. It’s something we’re paying for dearly, so…” he concluded.
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