McLaren reveal why they were not surprised by disappointing qualifying result

On the back of a disappointing race at Sao Paulo, McLaren found themselves in a difficult position at Las Vegas as the team has been struggling for grip over a single qualifying lap since the beginning of the race weekend.

McLaren certainly looked in the mix, both their drivers finding a good rhythm out there. However, neiter Oscar Piastri nor Lando Norris managed to improve their lap times from Q1 as their rivals were able to.

Norris, who is the only driver with a mathematical chance to beat Max Verstappen for the drivers' title in 2024, ended up only sixth quickest, but the more disappointing blow was for him that he finished behind his Dutch rival.

“Not a great Quali, in terms of position. We’ve been struggling all weekend; we’ve not had the pace of some of our competitors, and things didn’t come together in Qualifying.

"I’m happy with my performance in the end. I feel I put in a reasonable lap. It was just too difficult to do a perfect lap. It’ll be difficult tomorrow, but it’s a long race, so we’ll see what we can do.”

His team-mate Oscar Piastri enjoyed a promising start to his qualifying session, ending up fourth quickest in the first qualifying segment. However, he was unable to find the improvements his direct rivals managed to find, which meant that he took only eighth for tomorrow's Las Vegas Grand Prix.

"It was a bit of a tricky Qualifying, I just struggled to extract more lap time in Q3. We’ve still got a long race tomorrow and I think it’s going to be an interesting one with overtaking and tyres, so let’s see," noted the Australian.

Reflecting on McLaren's tough day, the Woking-based outfit's team boss Andrea Stella said that his British squad has struggled to find grip in the unusually cold, low-grip conditions.

“A tricky Qualifying session for us here in Las Vegas. Conditions are unusual here in terms of the low temperature, very low grip, and to some extent in terms of the drag level required for the long straights.

"We were not the team that coped best with that and likely we never put a perfect lap together all the way through Qualifying. That’s down to the behaviour of the car, rather than the drivers. Certainly, there’s a lot we need to review and learn.

“First, however, focus shifts to the Las Vegas Grand Prix. It’s a completely different regime: continuous laps and harder compound tyres. It’s going to be tricky too, but for different reasons.

"We’ve seen quite a lot of graining, even on the Medium tyre, and we’d expect the race to be eventful. Our job is to improve the behaviour of the car, maximise any opportunities that come our way, and score as many points as possible.”