Lando Norris has attributed McLaren’s struggles in the Las Vegas Grand Prix to a long-standing front limitation problem with its Formula 1 car that’s left him “worried”.
McLaren’s sluggish pace at the Las Vegas Strip Circuit meant Norris was powerless to prevent Red Bull’s Max Verstappen from claiming the title with two races to go.
Norris coming home in a distant sixth and team-mate Oscar Piastri seventh marked McLaren’s worst result since it emerged as a contender for race wins mid-season.
The Woking-based squad’s unexpected troubles saw Ferrari make more inroads into the team’s points lead, with the gap in the Constructors’ Championship 24 points.
However, Mercedes’ renewed competitiveness mitigated the damage to McLaren’s advantage as Ferrari was unable to achieve the win that it had been tipped to seize.
But Norris, who had the margin to pit late on to claim the fastest lap, was more concerned about the persistent battle that McLaren experiences in low-grip conditions.
Put to him that Mercedes helped McLaren’s title ambitions, Norris told media including Motorsport Week: “Yeah, you could say that; that doesn’t really matter.
“For us, of course it matters. I don’t think of those things, I think how bad our car was today. That’s what worries me.
“Mercedes being strong, how poor we’ve been all weekend. Clearly we’ve a lot of work to do with our car, it’s too difficult to drive, it doesn’t work in these conditions.
“It doesn’t work in many other tracks where we’ve had similar conditions, but we’ve been able to get everything out of it sometimes.
“Even when people think we’ve had the best car, we’ve absolutely not. We still won some of those races.
“Those were the great weekends but this weekend, even if I feel like I drove pretty well, I couldn’t have got anything more out of it.
“And if I tried I probably would have ended up in a wall somewhere.”
Norris opens up on long-standing McLaren weakness
Norris elucidated that the front-end restriction that accentuates the graining McLaren encounters has been embedded in the team’s cars since his debut back in 2019.
“It’s been a complaint of mine for the last six years and again we’ve still not been able to iron it out and get it out enough from our car,” he explained.
“Some tracks that are more limited or certain things, these issues don’t arise but we’ve always been one of the worst teams for front graining.
“I feel like I’ve driven very well in those races such as Mexico.
“When we do our front graining, we’re not the quickest car but as soon as the front graining is gone, we have a car that’s quick enough.
“When you can manage it to a certain extent, we can survive. Today, we couldn’t manage it enough.
“The problems were way too severe and they’ve been just as bad in many other races even like Montreal. Montreal, we were killing the fronts. A similar case, low grip, street circuit vibe.
“Mercedes, easily the quickest, easily should have won. We were struggling. They were fast.
“A similar thing this weekend. There are traits. We have weaknesses in the car.
“They’re ones I’ve been saying for a while but they’re ones which are very difficult to get out of our characteristic of a car. It’s something we’re working on a lot.”
Norris denies McLaren favourites in Qatar
McLaren has been backed to retrieve its usual form in Qatar, though, as the Lusail International Circuit’s high-speed configuration should be tailor-made for its MCL38.
But although he harbours optimism McLaren will be more competitive than in Las Vegas, Norris has warned that Red Bull remains the benchmark in high-speed turns.
“Many things have changed since last year, but these high-speed circuits I think will suit the Red Bull extremely well,” he previewed.
“Red Bull are still by a mile the best car in high speed so I’m not expecting us to be the favourites.
“But I think we absolutely have a car that can fight a lot more than we had this weekend.”
READ MORE – Lando Norris insists ‘no negatives’ Max Verstappen had ‘relatively easy’ run to F1 title
