That said, sometimes a driver just calls it like it is. McLaren's Lando Norris didn't sugarcoat a difficult Saturday at the Circuit of The Americas, bluntly branding his own session a “c*** job” after track limits drama compounded a tricky Q3 appearance.
Now, let's look at how it fell apart. Norris had initially hoisted himself up to sixth on his final push, only for the lap to be swiftly deleted due to a track limits violation at Turn 19. That single penalty dropped him all the way down to P8, leaving him sitting one position behind his McLaren team mate Oscar Piastri. Meanwhile, Mercedes' Kimi Antonelli took an impressive pole position at the front of the grid.
I don't know if it was ever up, but yeah, it's been tough all weekend. [There’s] just not been any pace so [it’s] a bit of a head scratcher,
“Not great,” Norris said when asked about how Q3 unfolded. “So, yeah, I don't know, just difficult. The car was the best it's felt, but I just did a c*** job.” Back on Friday, the reigning World Champion had already pointed out that while pace lived somewhere in the McLaren machine, the handling characteristics made putting a clean lap together an absolute headache.
Unfortunately, Sunday's outlook doesn't inspire much comfort either. When asked about potential gains in the race, Norris admitted that moving forward from eighth will prove difficult. “Honestly, I have no idea,” he added. “The pace is not bad, it's better than what it looks, but it is going to be hard from P8 I guess. Just a bad day.”
Over in the other garage, Piastri was dealing with the exact same beast. Echoing those earlier Friday complaints about the MCL40 handling around Austin, the Australian could only manage P7 and admitted the weekend has been less than ideal thus far. “I don't know if it was ever up, but yeah, it's been tough all weekend. [There’s] just not been any pace so [it’s] a bit of a head scratcher,” Piastri said.
The team threw everything at the setup to find a cure, but nothing worked. “We've tried a lot of stuff, but nothing's really seemed to be the fix,” Piastri noted. “So, you know, we didn't really expect any of the changes we made to make a massive difference, but it's just been incredibly difficult to get lap time out of the car. So, yeah, just one of those weekends at the moment.”
