Lando Norris delivered a blunt assessment of McLaren’s declining competitiveness after Sunday’s disappointing United States Grand Prix, conceding that team papaya it is now the fourth-fastest outfit on the grid.
Fifth place at the Circuit of the Americas was as much as Norris could extract from his McLaren, with Kimi Antonelli, Charles Leclerc, Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton all finishing ahead of the reigning world champion.
On the other side of the team’s garage, Oscar Piastri could manage only seventh, underlining a weekend in which McLaren clearly lacked the firepower to challenge for the podium on merit.
And while the MCL40’s latest upgrades are delivering what they were designed to do, Norris made clear that the results are not translating into the performance gains the team desperately needs.
McLaren’s slow-corner weakness refuses to budge
Norris admitted that the temptation to expect a dramatic leap forward whenever new parts arrive is difficult to resist, particularly when the competition continues to raise the bar.
“Yeah, I’m just hoping you put something on and it’s magical and you go a lot quicker and you’re fighting for a podium all of a sudden,” he said.
“Things are all working as they should, but you know, all the teams, Ferrari brought upgrades and all the teams are still bringing upgrades, so they’re delivering. Just not, I guess, just not really in all the places that we need them to, like the slow speed corners, we’re just nowhere near at the level we need to be.
"We need a lot more rear and slow speed. It’s been our issue for a long time now. It seems to be very hard to tackle.”
The problem is hardly new, but its persistence is becoming increasingly costly. McLaren continues to struggle for rear-end performance and grip through slower corners, leaving it vulnerable against rivals who have found ways to extract more from their packages.
Asked directly whether that left McLaren fourth in the competitive order, Norris needed little time to consider his answer.
“Yeah, I think it’s pretty obvious.”
It’s a sobering verdict on McLaren’s current standing. Rather than chasing victories, the team is now fighting to remain ahead of Red Bull in the Constructors’ championship, with its rivals closing in despite McLaren’s continued development efforts.
Making the most of a compromised race
McLaren attempted to compensate for its lack of outright speed by gambling on a one-stop strategy, hoping a Virtual Safety Car or full Safety Car would create an opportunity to challenge for a surprise podium.
“Yeah, we tried. I mean, we were not there on pace or anything, so we had to give it a shot and if there’s any VSC or safety car, we were right in contention for a good podium,” Norris explained.
“Even a P2 for a lot of it. I feel like it was a good race today, I feel like the pace was strong. I feel like I got everything out of it, so I have to be happy even though a P5 doesn’t sound amazing.”
The gamble kept Norris in contention for several laps, but it also left him vulnerable late in the race. On ageing hard tyres, he held off Verstappen until the Red Bull driver’s fresher rubber and additional deployment advantage proved decisive.
“Inevitably as soon as he had Overtake [mode] and I had to use Boost [mode] to defend, he was going to come past quite easily,” the McLaren driver said.
“So he did that and as soon as I then have traffic on old tyres, then it’s kind of game over and it’s easy for everyone else.”
Norris also defended McLaren’s decision to swap its drivers during the race, explaining that he had been “a lot quicker all weekend” than Piastri, making the call “just the obvious thing to do”.
But the bigger concern lies in the championship arithmetic. McLaren arrived in Austin holding a seven-point advantage over Red Bull in the fight for third in the constructors’ standings. They leave Texas level on points, with five rounds remaining.
For Norris, the immediate challenge is no longer simply finding a way back onto the podium. McLaren must address a stubborn technical weakness before its rivals turn a difficult season into an even more damaging one.
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