McLaren’s hopes of beating Ferrari in Las Vegas quickly turned into disappointment, with the team struggling to match their rival’s pace throughout the weekend.
Lando Norris didn’t hold back when talking about his frustrating race. The young British driver had to push his car to the absolute limit – sometimes dangerously so.
“All of it,” Norris said when asked what he tried to adjust during the race. “I changed pretty much everything I could, to the point where the car was almost undriveable.”
He was basically racing on a knife’s edge the whole time, risking a crash just to keep up with the competition.
The main problem? Front tire graining – where the front tires start to wear unevenly and lose grip. It’s a nightmare for drivers trying to maintain consistent lap times.
“It’s just frustrating when you’re on track and there’s nothing you can change to go a lot quicker,” Norris explained. “As soon as we didn’t have the front graining, our pace was much closer to the others, like in the final stint.”
But that’s the thing about racing – when one problem gets fixed, others often pop up.
“Whenever we had the front graining, we were just miles off,” he added. “And when we could fix a bit of it – which isn’t easy – we were a little bit closer.”
The result has allowed Ferrari to close the gap in the constructors’ championship, putting extra pressure on McLaren as the season heads toward its final races.
