Norris endured a "frustrating afternoon" in Austin

On the back of a dominant showing at the Singapore Grand Prix, Lando Norris was unable to replicate that performance in Austin, labelling the race at the Circuit of the Americas as frustrating.

Having secured pole position after a dramatic end to Saturday's qualifying session, Lando Norris had a good start. However, he found himself pushed wide into Turn 1, as he made sure to avoid any contact with his championship rival Max Verstappen.

The incident resulted in Norris falling back to P4. The Brition inisially looked to struggle for pace, but after the graining on his tyres cleared off, he was able to set impressive lap times to extend his first stint.

Although he came back on the track only in fourth spot after his late pit stop, he closed in on Verstappen for third. But after multiple attempts to overtake, the move he eventually made was off the track, and the stewards gave him a time penalty.

Norris commented: “A frustrating afternoon. Of course, starting first and finishing fourth is not what we hoped, but it was a challenging field with the Ferraris looking strong all weekend.

"I was confident in a podium finish today but unfortunately, we lost it through a decision out of our hands. So, a tough weekend and we have work to do. We’ll debrief as a team and go again next weekend in Mexico to secure more strong points in our championship push.”

His team-mate Oscar Piastri echoed Norris' words, claiming that while it was positive to score vital points in the fight for the constructors' title, it was frustrating to see McLaren fail to challenge the leading Ferraris for the victory.

“It was a bit of a lonely afternoon, to be honest, starting and finishing in P5. On the positive side, we scored some decent points, which is important in the Constructors’ Championship fight.

"We just didn’t quite have the pace of Ferrari today. The field is still extremely tight, and this weekend showed that. We’ll be aiming to come back stronger in Mexico.”

McLaren team boss Andrea Stella sounded a frustrated voice after the 56-lap Austin F1 round, blaming Max Verstappen for pushing Norris wide at Turn 1 at the start.

“A very tight race in Austin, as we anticipated with three different teams in condition to win. It’s a shame that Lando’s race was affected initially by Max pushing him off in Turn 1, and then, once the hard job of recovering the position on Max was done, thanks to good pace and strategy, he lost the podium because of a penalty we don’t understand nor agree with.

Reflecting on the five-second penalty for Norris, the Italian added: "We feel this was an inappropriate way to change the result of a race.

“On Oscar’s side, a very well-executed race by him and the team, leading to an important haul of points. Now we reset, turn the page and focus on the next race.”