McLaren expect to score points on Sunday with at least one car, despite both starting outside the top ten, as they feel their race pace is much better than their one-lap qualifying pace.
Fernando Alonso starts the United States Grand Prix from P12, whilst team-mate Jenson Button starts P19, having struggled for pace with traffic a particular problem for the Briton.
Nonetheless, both team boss Eric Boullier and Alonso believe a points finish is possible with their race pace.
"Fernando drove a near-perfect Q2 lap here in Austin today – but, even so, he narrowly failed to go through to Q3, missing out by just 0.169s, ending up 12th.
"However, our car is more competitive relative to our principal rivals’ in terms of race pace than it is in terms of qualifying pace. So, while P12 is far from ideal, it nonetheless gives him a platform from which to attack tomorrow, in an effort to progress through the field to some extent and thereby score world championship points."
Alonso doesn't expect an easy ride on Sunday and says he and the team will need a clever strategy to make their race work.
"If we want to score some points in the race tomorrow we need to raise our game and find a clever way," he added.
Button meanwhile was disappointed to have his afternoon spoiled by traffic which refused to get out of his way.
"I had four cars to overtake in the last sector alone, and then the last one [Jolyon Palmer] didn’t move out of the way. He saw me really late and stayed on the racing line, so I had to outbrake into the last corner. It’s so important to brake late and carry speed into there and you can’t do that if you’re offline, it hurts the tyres a lot more. It’s disappointing.
"Hopefully tomorrow we can make up some ground in the race but it’s going to be a tough day – we have good race pace but overtaking around here will be almost impossible for us."
