Lando Norris has highlighted balance and setup issues on his McLaren MCL38 F1 car during qualifying for the United States Grand Prix sprint race at the Circuit of the Americas. However, he was quite happy with fourth place because “it could have been much worse.”

Given Norris' recent streak of wins and pole positions, it felt “shocking” for him to finish between the two Ferrari drivers. He was only 0.25 seconds behind Max Verstappen, who secured pole position.

The recent upgrades to the McLaren may require further fine-tuning or adjustments, particularly given that Mercedes' George Russell overtook Norris for second and Charles Leclerc secured third place. Norris finished fourth and sixth in SQ1 and SQ2 respectively, just over two tenths of a second behind the fastest times in each session. In SQ3 he again fell short by a similar margin and missed out on a front row start for the USGP sprint race.

Speaking to the media after sprint qualifying, the McLaren driver said:

“(It was) not very good. P4, so not a great day. To be honest, I struggled with balance and setup all day.”

“In a way I'm happy with P4 because I felt like it could have been a lot worse, but my lap was shocking. Not a terrible day and it could have been worse but better. But I accept it.”

Norris then emphasized that the changes brought about by the new upgrade package would not be felt on his MCL38, suggesting that “it's not a new package, it's pretty much the same.”

With all eyes on the US GP sprint race to see if McLaren can challenge Red Bull this time around, Norris was asked if he had any idea of ​​his race pace. He said:

“No not really.

“I hope to move forward, that's my plan, but as far as speed goes, I think we're where we should be today, so my plan is to move forward, but I have no idea how much we can.”

Speaking of the Papaya team's upgrades to the car, the list of replaced parts is quite extensive – from changes to the brake line to updates to the front wing, front suspension and a new beam wing designed to reduce drag. Commenting on the upgrades, McLaren team boss Andrea Stella said:

“After spending a busy few weeks at the factory consolidating and strengthening our championship campaign, we now travel to Austin for the first of two triple-headers. We are only six races away from the end of the season, but there are still many races ahead of us.” Many teams will be bringing updates in these final races, so we expect tough competition, but as always we keep our heads down, focused focus on ourselves and try to continually collect points in our pursuit of both titles. “