A downbeat Lando Norris believes that the high temperatures at the Miami Autodrome contributed to McLaren’s qualifying struggles but conceded that the result was “expected.”
Both Norris and team-mate Oscar Piastri exited qualifying in Q1 and will start the grand prix from P16 and P19 respectively.
McLaren had seemed to be making progress since the start of the season, with its MCL60 showing some promising midfield pace during the practice sessions on Friday as Norris reached the high of sixth fastest in FP2.
But despite seeming to improve the pace of the car, the McLaren pair’s swift exit from Miami qualifying on Saturday provided no surprise to Norris
“I think it was as expected to be honest, ” Norris said to F1TV when asked for his opinion on McLaren’s lacklustre performance in qualifying.
“Little bit the hotter track makes the balance go away from us a little bit and makes our life tougher inside the car.
“[It] Just makes our issues bigger and to a bigger extent. So tougher to out laps together, tougher to execute laps in qualifying.
“The underlying issue is that we just don’t have the pace through the corners, down the straights. Just a struggle.”
Team-mate Piastri echoed Norris’ thoughts, “I think it is the heat. The car is not particularly tricky its quite low grip but it’s just not particularly fast,” he said.
“We struggled today, as a team,” the Australian concluded.
Despite McLaren’s issues in qualifying, Norris was remaining more upbeat about the team’s prospects for the race on Sunday.
“[Tomorrow] I’m expecting it to be quite easy, he remarked. “We’ve been saving a couple of seconds in the pocket for tomorrow so we just want to have a good race.”
