McLaren trio reflect on F1 US GP where Lando Norris notes about getting stuck behind Charles Leclerc, while nothing worked for Oscar Piastri, as they and Andrea Stella add on title scene.
It wasn’t the grand prix McLaren hoped for in US GP at Circuit of the Americas, especially since Piastri lost ground to rivals in his F1 drivers’ title quest. Red Bull’s Max Verstappen bridged the gap to 40 points now, with the Australian only 14 points adrift from teammate Norris.
They lost out after a double hit in the sprint race. With no data, the ride height choice was conservative which further added to their misery. Norris was stuck behind Leclerc for most part, while Piastri cleared George Russell, but did not have legs to even bother Lewis Hamilton.
They never had soft tyre choice in their minds since hard was the go-to tyre from medium. But due to Leclerc’s run, the whole field was able to pin on the soft compound for the second stint. The Monegasque was robust in his defence against Norris, which eventually cost him.
Without Leclerc, both Norris and team boss Stella feel the car had enough pace to hustle Verstappen, since the margin on average hovered around 6-7s. The Italian praised the work of the Brit, as he felt the conditions and race situation suited his style of racing.
But on Piastri’s side, they are analysing what went wrong. The Australian admits that the circuit has always been a troubled one for him, but the major point of concern is the slump rather than Verstappen gaining on them. Piastri is not too concerned by the threat of the Dutchman as yet.
He acknowledges the steps taken by him and Red Bull, but he is focused on getting back on his form. Piastri has no wins in four races now, while Norris has no wins in five. Stella, meanwhile, never discounted Verstappen as a threat, but note McLaren has no updates to stop the trend.
Race, result –
Norris: “Who knows? What was it that you [Verstappen] said once — “if your mum had balls… she’d be your dad”? Yeah. Who knows. But, you know, starting on the Soft, starting on the right side of the grid… He had the advantage in Turn 1, on the outside. After yesterday, obviously a little bit wary — didn’t want to go too wide in Turn 1 because I didn’t want to end up in the gravel again. So yeah, I kind of had to just stay on the inside and stick to the safer route. But Charles did a good job and I got passed. Who knows after that? You know, I think I found it difficult enough just to get close to Charles, and their pace wasn’t bad at all. Until, what, 10 laps to go he was like six seconds off Max. So it wasn’t like we were that far away, or their pace was that bad. So, I think it was a good race.
“The pace was pretty close. I think that’s why it was so difficult — because we were quicker, for sure, but not by a lot. And therefore, there were some challenging lap-after-lap battles, trying to put him under pressure, trying to make him make some mistakes here and there. He didn’t make many, for sure. But I think especially the final stint, I managed to get the tyres into a good window, drop back a few seconds, re-attack, and I managed to kind of catch him a bit more off guard, let’s say, with a couple of laps. So, a good result in the end. For a minute, I was not expecting to finish second. I thought he was just a bit too quick for us. But to get back into second and get past was perfect.”
Piastri: “Not necessarily, I mean, I was trying. I was literally trying my best to get anymore spot if I could but just didn’t have the pace to do anything. Yeah, I was trying a lot of different things to try and find some pace, but it was either the same pace or slower when I tried some different things. So some things to try and understand. Yeah, the balance was quite different to what I expected at the beginning of the race and naturally as the rears went away, it kind of came back to me a little bit but the pace never really came with the balance change.”
Stella: “Well, first of all, I think in terms of the trend, today is a relatively reassuring race, because I think without having to fight with Charles, which was certainly an entertaining fight itself, I think Lando had the pace to win the race today. Obviously, he needed to gain a position on track, which is never easy with Max, and with a one-stop strategy, not necessarily we would have had many opportunities from a strategic point of view, but performance-wise, I think we are reassured that the pace was sufficient to fight for the victory. Like I’ve explained to some of your colleagues as well, I think not having done the sprint race left us a little bit on the back foot from a set-up point of view, and inside we can see already that there was more performance that we could have extracted from the car. When it comes to new upgrades, new parts, then this will not happen for the rest of the season.”
Strategy –
Norris: “I mean, I regret not putting a perfect lap and not going purple, purple, purple yesterday in qualifying. So, you know, you can’t ask these questions. I mean, you could do many different things. You never know what’s going to work out. I don’t think our strategy was wrong. I think we did a good job. Potentially, we should have — we’ll look back and see if we should have just boxed as soon as we got ahead of Charles or just tried an undercut and see if that worked out. But it was a long way to go on the Soft, and then you put yourself under Safety Car risk. So, you know, there’s many different things that can go your way. Otherwise, I think we did a good job. I think we took the correct amount of risk in the position that we’re in, and I’m happy and satisfied with the result — as much as I would have loved to be further up.”
Stella: “Honestly, it worked well for Leclerc, well done to Ferrari. I think this was a good way of keeping them in contention for finishing second. We did not consider that. We were a little surprised of seeing Ferrari starting on soft. I think most on the grid will have been surprised because Leclerc was one of the few cars in the top ten, I think the only one in the top ten, starting on soft. We were not even sure that a medium soft could have been a feasible one-stop, so we just discovered through the race what the strategy should have been. We saw very early that the hard tyre wasn’t a good tyre because people were coming off the hard tyre and therefore it looked like the medium soft was a possibility. So in this sense, I think Ferrari had done a good job of anticipating that starting on soft was a good idea.
“Unfortunately for us, it cost us that Lando’s race was determined by Leclerc’s pace because he followed all the way, rather than our overall pace. Yes, that’s about it [with lack of sprint running]. It’s about ride height and it’s about missing references to actually exploit fully what is allowed. In a track like COTA, which we know has cut out some things in the past, it’s one of those in which it’s very difficult to actually nail the last millimetre if you don’t have references coming from real running. Simulation can take you only to a certain point, then you need track data to actually go to the last millimetre.”
Battle with Leclerc –
Norris: “A little bit. I mean, the places which were easy to go off were Turn 9 over the crest of the hill, and then the last two corners. I think I was on three strikes by like lap 10. So I didn’t put myself in the best position. But then one of my strikes was because I was racing. You know, I think that’s one of the silliest rules that we have — we’re invited to try and race, but if you race too much, you get a penalty for it. And I got a track limits [strike] for trying to go around the outside and losing time to Charles. So, doesn’t really make much sense in terms of going racing. But it definitely made my life that little bit trickier, especially Turn 19, with the wind, like Max said, it was pretty inconsistent.
“It’s difficult to just be always on the limit and not make mistakes — which I obviously made a couple too many of, too early on. But yeah, a little bit more cautious at the end because I knew I couldn’t afford a penalty. But I took the risks I needed to. I followed for quite long. And, I mean, it’s tricky. Honestly, it’s almost trickier to follow in the slow speed than it is the high-speed corners. Yeah. That’s why on the street circuits, you also never really get overtaken — because it’s almost harder to follow on them than it is in quicker circuits at the minute. So… and next year — completely different.
“I have no idea. It’s a completely different car. The battery and all that stuff is — yeah, I don’t even know how it’s going to work next year, to be honest. So, I’m sure it’ll be a lot better just because there’s a lot less downforce and a lot less grip. And the cars won’t look anywhere near as cool going through, like, Sector 1 here, for example, because it’s a lot slower in the corners. But they’ll be quick in the straights for a few seconds. So I think the racing will probably be a bit better next year.”
Norris’ performance –
Stella: “For me, today is one of the Lando’s races. It’s very good when there’s a high degradation, it’s good when you have to run long stints, it’s good when there’s not much grip, it’s hot. I think he kept a level head, if you say like this, in understanding that we needed to be fast in overtaking Charles, but we also needed to make sure we finished the race. And I think from this point of view, he showed some patience when it was not possible to overtake.
“Indeed, I’m not sure how much this was visible, something that ultimately might have been decisive in the second stint when he decided to just get off completely, cool down the tyres and then go again. So I think we have seen Lando’s performance at its finest. If anything, we need to just check whether there was an opportunity in corner 1 to retain the position which would have unfolded a completely different race if we were following Max rather than Charles.”
What happened this weekend –
Piastri: “Difficult to know, I mean, probably track specific, I have not felt particularly comfortable the whole weekend, so definitely some things to try and understand. I feel like with the pace I had this weekend, I did the max that I could, qualifying was clean at least and the race was clean and I made up a spot. So, with the pace that I have had, that’s ultimately all I can ask for the moment. I think just trying to understand if we have been maximising the car every weekend. I am thinking in the race trim we still looked pretty good but in qualifying trim, it has been a bit tougher for us in last few weekends. And this weekend for whatever reasons, I have not gelled with the car at all. That’s the biggest thing and the other thing you could do is analyse it.
“I don’t have any great ideas at the moment, qualifying was clean from my side, just the pace wasn’t there. Honestly, pretty similar story in the race, I think this layout is quite interesting, there are lot of high-speed corners, lot of ride content, lot of very slow speed corners, so you need to be good at both end of the spectrum and actually there’s not a whole lot in that medium-speed range, there’s a few but there is more outside of that range. I think also for me it has not been particularly happy hunting ground in my whole F1 career, so in some ways I can’t say I am shocked that this is a tough weekend. But obviously it was hurting for me.”
Stella: “This is certainly one of the most important points that we need to review, which is the fact that Oscar, in qualifying and in the race, he seemed to have a couple of things that he was not able to fully realise and that possibly was available in the car. We are actually now checking that we are completely happy with the setup of the car, the setup of the floor, that everything is as intended from a car point of view, and at the same time we’ll be looking at the driving.
“I think we know with Oscar that when the conditions are such that we have low grip, you really need to challenge the car, lean on the understeer, oversteer, locking. This is an area of his driving that has an opportunity to improve. In Oscar’s standards, this will improve pretty fast. I think today we got quite a lot of information that adds to the information we got yesterday. I think already this morning we had some conversations with Oscar as to what we can do to extract more. I think this is just data to learn and Oscar will learn pretty soon.”
Title scene, Verstappen factor –
Norris: “I mean, doesn’t really matter. I can only score the most points I can every weekend. So the more points I score, the better it is for both situations. It doesn’t matter. Nothing changes. I don’t have to do anything different for either-or. It’s quite simple: just try and beat both drivers and life’s easy then!”
Piastri: “Not necessarily. He’s obviously there and he’s quick, but for me the biggest focus is just trying to work out why this weekend was tough and try and get back on the form we’ve had earlier in the season. So that’s my biggest focus and if we can find that again then the results will take care of themselves. Not really, I’d still rather be where I am than the other two. Obviously this weekend has not been what I wanted or what I expected. This weekend has been quite different to the previous couple: Baku was obviously a bit of a disaster for very different reasons and Singapore was what it was. So I think this weekend has been kind of the odd one out compared to others.
“But definitely, Max and Red Bull have found a lot of pace since the summer break as well. We saw flashes of it at the start of the year but it is consistent since Zandvoort. Not necessarily. He’s obviously had a good run in the last few races, but ultimately if we can find our way again, find our pace, and certainly for me, find the pace again, then I don’t have any major concerns. It’s still a long way to go in the championship, it is still for Max anyway. He’s obviously chased it down pretty quick, but it’s not exactly a small gap with five rounds to go. So I think if we can find our pace again, then things will take care of itself.”
Stella: “The danger for me is the same as there was in Baku, and something we said yesterday, in which I said very clearly in capital letters that Max was in the contest for the Drivers’ Championship, and when I say something, I mean it. It’s not like if I say it, I think it’s because of the experience, it’s because of understanding the trend, understanding the circuits that we were going to face from Baku onwards. For me, there’s no mystery. We know that when Max has the material to win, he becomes a very serious candidate to win. So it doesn’t change what our understanding of the situation is, it doesn’t change what we do.
“We just have to keep maximizing the performance and keep executing good weekends. And from this point of view, if we think of a race like Baku, we didn’t maximize the performance and we didn’t execute a perfect race. So definitely we have a large opportunity and the outcome of this season and the Drivers’ Championship is in our hands, it’s not in someone else’s hands. That’s the mindset that we want to have and that’s the mindset that we will have. The fact that there are five races and two sprints means that we can also increase the gap to Max. That’s how I see things. I think we have good trucks coming for our car and I think we have more that we could have exploited out of our car.
“And to some extent, the drivers themselves, I think they recognize themselves that they could have done a better job in some of the previous races. So I think we look at the next five races as opportunities to increase the gap to Max. And when it comes to having to make a call as to a driver, this will only be led by mathematics. We talked before about the experience and leaning on the experience, I can recall at least 2007 and 2010, in which you go to the last race and it’s actually the third that wins the championship. So we’re not going to close the door unless this is closed by mathematics.”
Here’s race start: https://www.formula1.com/en/video/2025-united-states-grand-prix-leclerc-snatches-p2-from-norris-on-the-race-start.1846439089823431926
Here’s fight between Lando Norris and Charles Leclerc: https://www.formula1.com/en/video/2025-united-states-grand-prix-norris-battles-past-leclerc-to-retake-p2.1846442093519759315
Here’s how F1 US GP panned out