McLaren hit the limit of its car earlier than Ferrari, claims Norris

Following a strong showing in final practice, Lando Norris was unable to convert his impressive performance into a pole position at the Mexico City Grand Prix. The British driver claims that his team hit the limit of his car earlier than Ferrari.

McLaren showed frightening pace in the third and final practice session at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez, with Oscar Piastri heading his team-mate Lando Norris. The margin over the rest of the field left McLaren look the favourites for pole.

However, Piastri had a disastrous opening segment of qualifying. While he looked strong, he made a mistake on his first flying lap on Pirelli’s softs which meant that he lost his lap time to track limits. He attempted a second push lap, but he could not set a good enough lap to progress into the second qualifying segment.

His team-mate Lando Norris did make it all the way to Q3, but as the track cooled he couldn’t step things up to compete with Ferrari, and was also pipped by his championship rival Verstappen.

The Briton made a series of mistakes on his first push lap in Q3 before trying to control his aggressive approach on his final push lap, but it was only enough for a third spot on the grid after his dominant showing in Q1 and Q2.

Commenting on his qualifying session, Norris said: “Not good enough, clearly. Honestly, I’m, let’s say, relatively happyish still to be P3. Not a great day, yes. I mean, I missed obviously FP1 and then with the alternate tyres, so I felt like a bit on the back foot, probably not as much as what Max was, but not been that comfortable at all.

“And found some good steps into qualifying. And obviously Q1 and Q2 were very good. But I mean, I found the limit very quickly. And I was happy to find the limit. And things were good. But just couldn’t progress from there.

“The car was too difficult to drive in Q3. Too difficult to get especially three tenths out of it comparing to Carlos. So happy with third. For a minute, it looked like it could have been better. But I think we finished where we should be.”

Following his strong showing in the first two segments of qualifying, Norris failed to match the step Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz was able to achieve. The Briton explained that he was on the ragged edge all through his last qualifying lap, and he denied that he could have beat Sainz’s pole lap.

“I was at the limit. I couldn’t go any quicker. It’s more I think the others just didn’t get the most out of it. Yeah, pretty much every corner I was close to locking up and making mistakes. And I did that in my Q3, run 1 lap.

“But I had definitely nowhere near close to three tenths left in the car. So it was more that they just went quicker. I was at the limit. I got everything out of the car already in Q1 and Q2. Made us look like the ones to beat. But honestly, since FP1, Ferrari have been the guys to beat. And Carlos is on top today. So challenging to beat them tomorrow.

Pushed on to reveal whether he will be able to challenge Ferrari for race win, Norris said that Ferrari might carry over its pace advantage into the 71-lap race.

“I mean, the race pace is always a tough one to know. The last few weekends, they’ve been extremely quick and quicker than us, so it’s… I don’t have the confidence to say, yes, we can just beat them on pace.

“Like today, not on their level. But tomorrow’s another day. You know, if we can have a good start, hopefully it’s exciting down to turn one. Yeah, Carlos is going to be fast.

“Like he said, he’s got nothing to lose. And they’ve been fastest for the last few weekends. So we’ll try our best. But I don’t think we have the pace comparing to them at the minute,” concluded Norris.