Neither Lando Norris nor Oscar Piastri were able to make it out of the first round of qualifying for the Las Vegas Grand Prix on Saturday morning, making it McLaren's worst qualifying session of the year since Miami.
The team had started the season poorly before upgrades coming in from Austria onwards had made them much more competitive and in the running to overtake Aston Martin for fourth place in the constructors championship.
But that ambition took a hit this weekend with a shocking quali performance that left Norris lining up in P15 on the grid and Piastri in 18th, after a grid drop for Lance Stroll put the Aston on the back row.
"I’d say where we expected to be, honestly," was Norris' frank assessment of the situation they find themselves in. "It’s been a tough weekend, the car’s just not been performing [at the level] we’ve been the last few weeks
"I guess that’s disappointing," he admitted to the media in the paddock after his premature exit from qualifying. "At the same time, since our first few laps we knew we were not going to be very quick.
Norris suggested that "it’s a good thing" in some way. "A bit of a reality check, I’d say. I’d rather have that this year than next year, if that makes sense. Not what we wanted but it’s kind of what we were expecting.”
Norris summed up the MCL60's problems as being “slow with low fuel and slow with high fuel”, adding: "We’ve said that we have strengths and weaknesses, we know where we’re very good, we know where we’ll be [less competitive].
"Everyone is going up and down a lot," he pointed out. "Like we saw Mercedes struggling so much in Brazil, and Ferrari struggled a lot more in Brazil, and suddenly [here in Vegas] they look like the quickest car.
"It’s about time we had a little bit of a down just to make us realise that we still have weaknesses and some big struggles," he said. "A day like today, as much as it hurts inside, is sometimes a good thing too.”
While Norris said that he was where he had expected to be this weekend, Piastri was clearly more taken aback by the sudden slump in McLaren's form in Vegas.
"The pace in FP3 was good,” he pointed out. "The tyres were in a good place. The pace at the start of qualifying was good. I don’t know if we were one of the only ones to not use two sets of tyres.
“If we were, I think that probably explains it a lot," he suggested. "The first few laps we were in the top five, more or less. I don’t think it was really an issue of pace, just run plan maybe wasn’t what it should have been.
"I think the pace in the car is reasonable, just didn’t go to plan here," he added, insisting they would still do their best in race trim tomorrow.
“There’s a lot of long straights, tight corners. The tyres are very difficult to get in the window so maybe that will catch some people out," he mused. "We just have to make sure we’re not one of them!"
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