Lando Norris believes that Saturday's sprint race suggests that McLaren are in a slightly stronger shape for today's United States Grand Prix than their Ferrari rivals.
Norris started the 19-lap sprint from fourth place on the grid but initially lost out to Carlos Sainz starting immediately behind him, after the Spaniard was the only driver to opt to run soft tyres.
Although the compound gave Sainz the initial advantage when it came to pace, tyre degradation put him at a disadvantage by the midpoint of the race and Norris was able to recover his position by the chequered flag.
The final laps even saw Norris take huge chunks out of the gap that had grown between himself and Charles Leclerc in the second Ferrari. He ended the race less than a second behind the Monegasque.
Norris believes that's a good indicator of the teams' respective race forms, and should be to McLaren's advantage in the Grand Prix where he will start on the front row alongside pole sitter Leclerc.
“That was a good race, despite the tough beginning," commented Norris afterwards. "With Carlos starting on softs it took a few laps to get past him.
"But when I did, the pace looked very, very strong - a lot better than the Ferrari," he suggested. "One lap more and we would have had Charles and P3.
"There’s a lot of positive signs for tomorrow," he concluded. "A good day, and good preparation for tomorrow’s Grand Prix.”
McLaren team principal Andrea Stella was pleased with the strong finish for Norris and more points in the team's pocket as they battle with Aston Martin for fourth place in the constructors championship.
“We scored good points today with Lando, who showed strong pace in this Sprint race," he said. "The car behaved consistently in the stint, which is promising for tomorrow, looking ahead to the race."
The sprint didn't go so well for Norris' team mate Oscar Piastri, who scored his maiden F1 win in the previous sprint race in Qatar.
“Not an ideal Sprint," the Australian admitted after finishing out of the points in P10 from fifth n the grid. "We had a lot of battles at the start. I went through the tyres extremely quickly, and they had overheated a lot.
"So not quite the result we wanted," he admitted. "But on the positive side we’ve learned a lot for the race tomorrow, which is where the majority of points are earned.
"We’ll switch focus to the Grand Prix now and aim to move forward tomorrow," he added.
Stella explained that Piastri's potential had been compromised by damage to the MCL60 on the opening lap, where he was passed by the fast-starting Sainz and made contact with cars around him.
"On Oscar’s side the pace was not enough to remain in the points," he acknowledged. "We can see that the tyres overheated rapidly after the start.
"We know that he engaged in battles with cars that were on slightly less used tyres than his starting set," Stella continued. After the race we also saw that he picked up some light damage to the front wing, which will have also had an impact.
"The positive is that we can gain the learning for tomorrow, when more points are at stake. We look forward to scoring well with both cars in the United States Grand Prix.”
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