Lando Norris has demanded that some Formula 1 drivers show “a bit more self-awareness” after he had to “avoid a very big crash” on the restart in the Mexico Grand Prix.

Norris had progressed from 17th to 10th in the opening half of the 71-lap encounter when the race was suspended on Lap 33 after Kevin Magnussen crashed at Turn 9.

But he lost out four places on the restart, with replays showing the Briton experienced a lethargic getaway before getting out of the throttle ahead of the approach to Turn 1.

Explaining the incident post-race, Norris reveals that he had to evade a potential crash when multiple drivers were jostling for position on the 890m blast to the first corner.

“I enjoyed the whole thing, apart from my restart,” he said.“I don’t know if you saw it but yeah, I probably had to avoid a very big crash, just people coming across not realising that people can be three abreast.

“So I avoided two extremely big crashes which would have been very nasty so, a bit more self-awareness from some drivers would be great.”

However, Norris has denied that the near miss was responsible for the setback.

He added: “It’s not why I lost out, I lost out because of a bad start but I lost out even more because of these things.”

Norris mounted a charge across the remainder of the race to gain nine places to fifth, prompting McLaren’s Andrea Stella to hail it “one of the best races” he’s seen.

The 23-year-old was equally enthused by McLaren’s pace despite running a compromised setup for overtaking, believing only the top two finishers were quicker.

“The pace was amazing already from Lap 1,” Norris beamed. “There was a lot of management involved and already when I came over the line the first time I got told to cool the engine.

“So we maybe weren’t perfectly set up for these things and I couldn’t push as much as I wanted to at times but at other times I could which was a lot of the second stint.

“The pace was excellent to go from 14th, 15th to 5th, to have better pace than almost everyone bar than [Lewis] Hamilton and Max [Verstappen] was very encouraging for us. So, yeah. As perfect a day as I could have probably asked for.”

Having navigated his way past both Alpine cars, Nico Hulkenberg and Alex Albon, Norris rapidly caught team-mate Oscar Piastri, resulting in McLaren using team orders.

“I didn’t ask to go past or anything,” Norris revealed. “I was happy to race against him. but I think it was clear from [the] pace and points that I eventually went on to get it, that was the correct thing to do from a team perspective. Thanks again to him.”

Norris then proceeded to reel in both Daniel Ricciardo and George Russell, who was struggling increasingly on his Medium tyre.

After dispatching Ricciardo’s AlphaTauri with a bold move around the outside into Turn 4, Norris used the same corner to set up a clever switchback on Russell into Turn 6.

“You know deep down, I know these guys really well, I know Daniel but he’s not going to want to give it up easily at all, right! Two tough ones but enjoyable,” he reflected.

“All the racing got done after the restart. It was fair, tough and hard and that’s when it’s good fun!”

Following his costly Q1 exit in qualifying, McLaren elected to diverge from the rest of the competition by starting Norris on Softs.

Norris believes it “absolutely” worked out for him, crediting his McLaren team for helping him to maximise the best possible result.

“It just helped me in the start, off the line and things like that,” he said. “Turn 1 can go your way, it cannot go your way, but I think we played everything smart. I think played it well.

“Maybe the Safety Car and a couple of things weren’t perfectly timed for us. The VSC and so forth. Otherwise, everything pretty much went our way, and we maximised today, the Softs included.”

McLaren team boss Andrea Stella has hailed Lando Norris’ 12-place climb to fifth in the Mexico City Grand Prix as “one of the best races for a driver that I’ve been part of.”

Having lined up 17th after being caught out in qualifying, Norris had progressed up to 10th when a red flag period was enforced on Lap 33 by Kevin Magnussen’s hefty crash.

However, the Briton encountered a sizeable setback in his recovery bid when he made a sluggish getaway at the standing restart and dropped down four places back to 14th.

But Norris charged through the pack to overtake several cars, culminating with a brilliant switchback manoeuvre on George Russell to seize fifth by the chequered flag.

Asked if it represented Norris’ best-ever drive in the top flight, Stella said: “Well in fairness we were having exactly this conversation on the pit wall as his race engineer Will Joseph turned to me and said to me that’s one of the best of Lando. I said, ‘Will, that’s one of the best at all’.”

Stella believes Norris’ ascent up the order was even more impressive considering the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez is regarded as one of the hardest venues to overtake.

“Overtaking, so many overtakings, in Mexico, where yesterday if you read the quotes everyone is saying it’s so difficult to overtake, while managing PU temperatures, having to do lift and coast. I’m just impressed. One of the best races for a driver that I’ve been part of, let’s say.”

The ex-Ferrari race engineer admits that Norris’ drive reminded him of Fernando Alonso’s race-winning exploits from down the order at the 2012 European Grand Prix.

“Yeah, this race made me think of Valencia 2012, where at the time we started 12th, we won the race,” Stella asserted.

But Stella concedes that the result provided a bittersweet one for McLaren, having failed to utilise its competitiveness in race trim following Norris’ compromised qualifying.

“But this one… you know, on one side we are excited, having seen this kind of masterpiece, on the other side like Lando said on the in-lap, like, guys let’s do a good job on Saturday and we can fight for podiums, so you know the pace was there to fight for podiums.”

Nevertheless, the Italian is determined to look at the positives regarding McLaren’s encouraging pace, while insisting the team must execute cleaner weekends.

He added: “That’s what I’m trying to say, there’s a little element of frustration, but at the same time if you asked me yesterday I would not have thought we could overtake so many cars.

“So I’d rather take the positives out of this race and I hope that the entire team at the factory and the fans receive the same sort of message: we are there, we don’t give up, we are competitive, but we need to do a better job overall the whole race weekend.”

Lando Norris blamed a “silly” error at Turn 12 on his one completed qualifying lap for his shock Q1 exit at the Mexico City Grand Prix.

After featuring in the top eight through all three practice sessions, Norris had been earmarked as one of the potential candidates for pole position on Saturday.

Norris was one of a select few drivers to venture out for the first qualifying segment on the Medium compound but languished in the drop zone as the time ebbed away.

Having encountered a slight moment in the middle sector on his only timed run, McLaren instructed Norris to pit for a change onto the Soft tyre to ensure he progressed to Q2.

However, the Briton was forced to abort his final flying lap when yellow flags were waved for a spin from Fernando Alonso at Turn 3, preventing many drivers from improving.

Among them was Norris, leaving the McLaren driver eliminated in 19th place.

Expanding on the events of his troubled Q1 session, Norris said: “Many people [went out on the medium first]. Oscar [Piastri] did, the Ferraris did, the Mercedes did. It was just something we had planned already.

“We had one issue which was when I didn’t complete the lap, we thought there was enough time to do so… we still had the Soft tyre to go. I just didn’t get to set a banker lap, that would be my first problem for you.

“Then I had one opportunity until the yellow flag at the end which is a shame. I had one lap in the middle and I messed up into T12, I went on the exit kerb and locked up a little bit and went off. That turned out to be my only lap of qualifying so, that was it.”

Norris admits that he had been encountering problems with braking into Turn 12 during FP3, which led to him overstepping the mark and losing time at the corner in qualifying.

The 23-year-old concedes that he pushed more than was needed to post a time that would have been sufficient for a Q2 spot.

Asked if overheating tyres was an issue, Norris retorted: “No, I just braked too late. My first Medium lap I didn’t brake into Turn 12 so that would have been my first time.

“If I braked too late into Turn 12 on the Medium, maybe on the Soft I would have pulled it back.

“It was close, I thought I had to push more than I had to. I was easily in, so it was quite silly of myself to push quite as much as that.

“It’s where I was a bit down, the one thing I had to improve after FP3 was the braking into Turn 12. Yeah, the first Soft lap was my first time to try and improve on that a little bit. It was my first push lap into Turn 12 and I just overdid it a little bit.”

Prior to this weekend, Norris had been on a career-best run of four consecutive podium finishes in Formula 1, elevating him up to sixth place in the Drivers’ Championship.

Norris is adamant that adding to his points tally is the aim but remains wary that the difficulty in passing at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez could halt his progress.

“The easy one to say is that points are the target,” he said regarding his prospects. “We were easily there today, pace is very good. Race pace is another question.

“So yeah, pass as many cars as we need to, obviously sticking with targets and things like that, there’s still plenty of opportunities. It’s still not a very easy track to do a lot. I can’t see many overtaking opportunities, the slipstreams not very big at all because of the air density so yeah.

“I think we were easily quick enough to be top six, so plenty of opportunities to get back tomorrow.”

Lando Norris admits he is wary McLaren could have peaked too early in the weekend at the Mexico City Grand Prix after ending within a tenth of the fastest time in FP2.

Ahead of the weekend’s running, Norris insisted that he was anticipating the upcoming rounds in Mexico and Brazil being “tricky” for McLaren against its main rivals.

However, the Briton wound up fourth in FP1 before slotting into second in the second practice hour, only 0.119s shy of Max Verstappen at the top of the timesheets.

But having acknowledged multiple drivers were within “three-tenths” of the ultimate pace, Norris is cautious he might’ve displayed McLaren’s hand prematurely.

“I think it was a good Friday, a good start to the weekend anyway,” he said. “It’s close; the thing is it could swing very quickly either way.

“I did a good lap, maybe too good for this early in the weekend but yeah. We will continue to try and improve, but it’s a good start.”

While the Mercedes drivers were adamant there’s a lot more to come after a subdue Friday, Norris notes that McLaren won’t be able to unlock much more pace overnight.

Asked if there were any potential changes that could be made to bolster McLaren’s prospects even further, Norris replied: “Not a lot. I think we started the weekend off well.

“We generally start weekends off quite well and have a good idea where to put the car to begin with. It’s not far off normally where we end the weekend.

“There’s not a lot to gain through the weekend. There’s always little things and those little things add up.

“There’s still stuff to improve, also in my driving little things here and there, but to challenge the Red Bull is going to be tough around here.”

Meanwhile, McLaren team-mate Oscar Piastri encountered his debut experience at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez on Friday and the unique altitude at the venue.

The Australian lagged behind Norris, but he recorded a best time in both sessions that was good enough to be classified inside the top 10, slipping from sixth to ninth in FP2.

“Low grip! Definitely! It was a good first day I think,” he concurred with Norris.

“Car pace looks reasonable, the track is very low grip and takes a lot of getting used to, but it seems cool. I feel like I built up through the day and seemed like a reasonable FP2 session so still some things to tidy up and find time tomorrow but looking reasonable.”

Friday’s running was disrupted by Pirelli granting the teams an opportunity to run its 2024 prototype tyres at a race weekend, while the latter stages of the second session were interrupted by lingering rain showers.

Piastri is therefore hopeful of getting through a smoother programme in FP3 to ensure he can be in an optimal position for qualifying.

Looking ahead to Saturday’s on-track action, Piastri said: “I think some more laps, we will probably have some more qualifying attempts and stuff like that.

“The program today has been a bit more jumbled for everyone I think. So it’s a bit harder to get a proper read, but just more attempts. That’s all I usually need every weekend and hopefully by qualifying, it’s in the right place.”

McLaren Formula 1 drivers Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri are expecting the next two rounds in Mexico and Brazil to be “tricky” for the team against its closest rivals.

Despite Norris predicting that McLaren would struggle last time out at the Circuit of the Americas, the Briton led 27 laps of the race and wound up third on the road, which became second when Lewis Hamilton was disqualified for a technical infringement.

The result extended Norris’ run of consecutive F1 podium finishes to four and elevated McLaren above Aston Martin into fourth in the Constructors’ Championship.

However, Norris, who encountered trouble with tyre degradation in the closing stages, insists McLaren’s race was flattered by gaining track position over its competitors.

Asked if he was surprised by the range of circuits on the calendar McLaren’s MCL60 continues to be competitive at, Norris said: “Yes, in a way, I think in terms of pace, yeah.

“But in qualifying, you didn’t expect to be as high up, which just set us up very well for all the races and the race pace was good. Maybe not so much on Sunday, you know you look at the race pace I had quite poor race pace compared to quite a few different cars.

“The Ferrari was pretty alright to be honest. The Aston’s were pretty quick, quicker than me, so, you know I think it was just a good weekend which made things look even better.

“Yeah, I think we just made the most of every situation we’re in, you know, pretty good laps in qualifying and things like that, which makes everything was a bit better. But yeah, still to be as competitive as we were in a circuit we didn’t quite expect to be was a good thing.”

Last weekend, Norris conceded that McLaren’s best chance at achieving a victory this year had likely evaded the team at the high-speed Japan and Qatar circuits.

Despite the remarkable progress made over the course of this season, Norris mentioned that McLaren squandered a lot of lap time at the slow-speed Turn 11 hairpin at COTA.

The 23-year-old therefore suspects that the stop-start nature of the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez track configuration this weekend will hamper McLaren’s prospects.

“I think the main thing is there’s no strengths of our car here this weekend, maybe a little straight-line braking, but there’s no medium/high speed which is where we are very competitive, it’s where we get a lot of lap time back in races for example it’s where we we’ve always had to push high speeds, which is not something you necessarily want to do,” he explained.

“But to make up for a lack of slow speed performance, we have to push in high speed which causes more tyre temperature, more degradation. It’s just kind of two things that go wrong for us very quickly, which is cool and stuff. You get away with it, but when it is as hot as it was in Texas, that’s what led to a slightly worse performance on Sunday.

“But just in general, I think one or two very tough weekends, coming up both here and Brazil, very few medium [or] high-speed corners, a lot of very slow speed, second gear, third gear, which is just where we’re very weak. I think what’s going to make it, let’s say maybe a bit trickier is just our contrast of the last few weekends have been so good.

“So I think we’re just gonna see maybe a little contrast and we’re going to see like Aston, for example, I think that’s going to be very competitive and Mercedes, I think it will be very competitive here just because it’s a lot of stop-start, second gear, third gear, second gear corners where you just lose a lot of lap time through minimum speed.

“It’s nice when we’ve had surprises when we’ve actually done a bit better,” he continued. “But I think we know the ones which we definitely want to struggle with and we’ve kind of always struggled with a little bit which is here and Brazil. The final two races are just question marks at the moment.”

McLaren team-mate Piastri, who retired after unfortunate first-lap contact in Austin, agrees that Mexico will likely provide a sterner test for the Woking-based squad.

Asked if he thinks the track will suit McLaren’s current package, the Australian rookie replied: “Not particularly. Not like some other circuits have.

“In saying that, I think Austin was maybe better than our expectations in terms of performance. But yeah, we’ll have to wait and see. It’s a very different circuit here.

“It’s my first time here. So there’ll be a lot of learning for myself to do. But yeah, hopefully we can still be in the fight with the teams we’re around.”

McLaren team boss Andrea Stella says there are no more “magic” car development plans in place this year to rectify the remaining weaknesses of its MCL60 package.

Having only accrued 17 points in the first eight rounds, McLaren have since become a consistent contender at the front since launching a revised car in Austria in July.

McLaren have regularly provided Red Bull’s closest challenge, enabling the team to recently overhaul Aston Martin for fourth place in the Constructors’ Championship.

But despite being on a run of four consecutive podium finishes, Lando Norris admitted that the Woking squad’s window to secure a victory this year had likely passed.

The Briton led 27 laps in Sunday’s United States Grand Prix but slipped to third on the road after tyre degradation problems hampered his pace in the closing stages.

Following the introduction of an upgrade package in Singapore last month, Stella outlines that McLaren won’t be bringing any further sizeable updates this season.

Asked if there was a degree of frustration that McLaren missed out on the win in Austin, Stella said: “[It] Is a good point because, to some extent, we have almost have mixed feelings. I mean, we are celebrating a podium here. So at the same time, after the first stint, it looked like we could have enough pace to finally grasp the victory.

“So I would like to reaffirm that we are very happy with the podium. And this is certainly something that everyone after the initial second in which; ‘ahh, shame we didn’t win it,’ I think everyone realises the proportion of our being in a sequence of podiums in this season – thinking where we started from.

“But I you know, I also like this kind of determination whereby, you know, we look for the next step. We are realistic that this season is not like we’re going to have any magic in terms of car development to actually add the lap time or add to the improvement from a tyre degradation point of view that will change things around significantly.

“But we were at the same time not expecting this track to be one in which we were, you know, leading the race for an entire stint and a half. So we look forward to the coming races and hopefully, we can succeed.”

Lewis Hamilton’s disqualification for excessive wear on the plank of his Mercedes car promoted Norris back into second.

Meanwhile, Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc was hit with the same fate, handing Norris an extra place in the Drivers’ Championship. The 23-year-old now sits sixth overall, 12 points behind ex-McLaren team-mate Carlos Sainz.

Hamilton’s removal from the classification meant Sainz also earned a podium result, softening the points loss Ferrari suffered to McLaren. 80 points separate the former title rivals with only four rounds remaining.

McLaren Team Principal Andrea Stella has heaped praise on rookie Oscar Piastri by claiming his “rate of learning is remarkable”, despite a tough weekend in the United States.

Piastri was a victim of the Sprint format in Austin, with Friday’s poor showing in qualifying leaving him at the mercy of the midfield chaos at the start of Sunday’s grand prix.

An opening lap clash with Esteban Ocon led to an early retirement, following up a pointless 10th-place showing in Saturday’s Sprint race.

But the weekend was a low ebb in what has been a great rookie campaign for the Australian, which has seen him attain multiple podiums and a Sprint victory.

Asked about Piastri on Sunday at the Circuit of the Americas, Stella recognised the newcomer’s immense progress since he arrived at McLaren.

“I think we have said even at events where for reasons like Japan, where he was P2 on the grid, we said the real challenge here is actually the race pace because the race pace is the ability part of the race craft that you can test,” Stella said.

“So you sort of discover in the race and very rapidly you need to understand what’s going on with the tyres, what’s going on with the competition, the race situation, adapt and still be quick.

“That’s normally what comes later in the journey of a rookie. So we are extremely pleased that we are actually ticking the box from a pure speed point of view.

“And we saw that even in the Sprint shootout in Q3, he was actually there with Lando.

“But when it comes to putting laps together, especially in hot and high-tech situations like yesterday, for instance, in the Sprint, that’s where experience is important,” he continued.

“But I would like to highlight that the objective for today was to capitalize on yesterday’s experience in the Sprint, learn from a driving point of view, from a tyre management point of view, what we needed to learn and do better today.

“We are happy that actually we were in a better position today in the first stint and this confirms that the rate of learning is remarkable.”

Although Piastri failed to contribute to the team’s points tally last weekend, Norris’ second-place finish in Sunday’s race elevated McLaren above Aston Martin in the standings.

Both Esteban Ocon and Oscar Piastri avoided putting blame on each other’s door for the opening lap clash that put both out of the United States Grand Prix.

Starting 10th, the McLaren driver had a strong launch off the line and eyed up a move on the inside of Turn 1 as Ocon ran side-by-side with Alpine team-mate Pierre Gasly.

Approaching Turn 2, Piastri attempted to hold on around the outside of Ocon but the pair made contact which would soon put an end to the pair’s Sunday afternoon in Austin.

Alpine called Ocon to retire as early as Lap 6 while overheating called time on Piastri’s race by the end of Lap 10.

“I didn’t really think anything of it to be honest,” Piastri said post-race.

“I felt like I definitely had the right to be there. I don’t think Esteban did anything untoward, just we met and unfortunately it’s caused damage for both of us so, just one of those incidents.

“There’s fluid all down the right sidepod and that’s where the contact was so. Yeah, I think that was probably a big cause of the end of the race.

“I think today was a better step forward from yesterday, maybe still not quite to the same level I would have liked but definitely a big improvement from yesterday.

“It’s a shame it’s over early, I think there was still a lot of learning to go on this afternoon, but yeah. I think I was getting better and better, just needed to do it a bit quicker. “

Revealing more details about the cause of Piastri’s retirement, McLaren Team Principal Andrea Stella explained: “The impact with the front left wheel of one of the Alpines caused the damage in the water system right under the sidepod, under the bodywork on the sidepod, and this meant that we had a gradual loss of the pressure.

“And at some stage we saw that temperatures were going out of control. Pressure was kept reducing, so we needed to retire the car.”

Asked whether the contact was partly down to bad luck, Ocon explained: “I had a good launch, I was on the inside. I just took the corner, obviously Oscar then tried to go around the outside [Turn 2] and that was it – we touched. If I had to do it again, there’s nothing I’d really change.

“At the end it doesn’t matter to comment on it, the end result is that we are both out of the race. We both touched and we paid the price. We both had to retire the car, my whole sidepod was damaged which is a big shame.

“I think we could have scored points today. Only a couple of days until we go racing again which is good because we can turn the page.”

McLaren team boss Andrea Stella admits that Max Verstappen’s “below expectation” pace in the early stages of the United States Grand Prix gave it hope of victory.

Starting second, Lando Norris seized the lead away from the line and led the way until Verstappen, who lined up sixth, assumed first place into Turn 12 on Lap 27 out of 53.

McLaren responded by shortening Norris’ second stint, but the Briton struggled with tyre degradation in the closing laps and was overhauled by a charging Lewis Hamilton.

Stella asserts that McLaren’s strategy was centred around gunning for the victory, which evaded Norris by 10s as he was promoted up to second once Hamilton was disqualified.

“So on Lando’s side, we thought that the only first of all, we wanted to go for the victory,” he said. “So the only way to do that was try to go as fast as possible. Let’s see if the tyres are consistent or not.

“There’s no point in just taking care of tyres and then, you know, being just slow from a lap time point of view to achieve a certain strategy.

“And in the second stint, in the first stint, we worked very well. In the second stint, this meant that at some stage once Verstappen was close to us and then we were under attack. We couldn’t defend. And then we lost a little bit the tyres.

“So we pitted onto the second set of Hard. We tried to go as fast as possible because we knew that Hamilton would have been a problem at the end and even in this case, Hamilton had the better pace but also better consistency on the tyres.

“So from the point of view of pure lap time and from the point of view of degradation, we still have some work to do. But at the same time, we are very encouraged that we were in condition to think about going for the victory just by going as fast as possible.”

Stella concedes that McLaren’s dreams of achieving the side’s first win since 2021 were heightened by the slow initial progress Verstappen made through the top order.

Whilst Verstappen cantered to a dominant victory from the front in Saturday’s Sprint event, the Dutchman was hampered by race-long brake issues during Sunday’s encounter.

But Stella believes that Red Bull team-mate Sergio Perez only managing to climb from ninth to fifth demonstrates that the Austrian camp didn’t possess too much pace in hand.

“In the first stint I thought Verstappen’s pace was below my expectations, I thought he would be making ground more rapidly,” Stella revealed. “That’s actually what gave us a little bit of, you know, fluctuating situation that ‘oh, maybe today we can do it because he doesn’t seem to be too quick’.

“Then once we went on to the Hard tyres and he was underneath him, it wasn’t like he was quick because of the car, I think quicker than he was in the first stint and he was potentially quicker because of the tyres.

“I think probably the Medium tyres were the better tyres today than the Hard, because degradation was high, but the tyres could do a long enough stint to do a good two-stop race on two Medium tyres.

“I’m not sure about how much lap time he needed to give up because of managing the problem with the brakes, this one I absolutely have no idea. I think we could see throughout the weekend that Hamilton was very quick and I’m not sure.

“It all depends on how much Verstappen was holding because of the brakes. But if we look at that it’s not like Perez was flying at the same time. ​​So potentially at this event let’s say Mercedes was as quick as Red Bull.”

Asked if the result would have been different if Norris had a second set of new Medium tyres, Stella retorted: “I don’t think the result would have been different because Hamilton and Verstappen were too quick for us. But possibly we could have stayed in the game a little longer.”

Lando Norris believes it’s now unlikely that McLaren will secure a Formula 1 win before the end of 2023 despite classifying second in the United States Grand Prix.

Norris celebrated his 100th race in the top flight by notching a fourth consecutive F1 podium finish, elevating him up to sixth position in the Drivers’ Championship.

Before the weekend, Norris had downplayed McLaren’s prospects at the Circuit of the Americas, insisting the previous high-speed circuits had flattered the team’s standing.

However, the Briton wound up second in qualifying and led 27 laps of the race before eventually succumbing to Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton to come home third.

Norris, who was promoted to second after Hamilton’s disqualification, outlined the Qatar event represented his last opportunity of 2023 to score his maiden F1 victory.

“Do I think our best chances have gone? I would say yes,” Norris conceded. “I think Qatar was our best chance of winning a race. And I missed out on that one.

“I don’t want to say no, I don’t say like never. I think there’s no super high-speed, Suzuka-style, Qatar-style circuits left which is where we’re strong.”

“I don’t think they’re any good ones [tracks] for us coming up. I think our best have gone.

“I just want to be hopeful that we can do good results and I think we can still fight for podiums but these guys are too quick for me.”

Assessing the remaining four rounds on the calendar, Norris concedes that he’s “not looking forward to Brazil” and believes the final two venues will suit McLaren more.

Norris repeatedly issued throughout the Austin weekend that McLaren’s MCL60 car continues to lag behind its main rivals through the slow-speed sections of the lap.

“If you looked at the GPS overlays of how bad we are in the slow speed [corners], I’m not looking forward to Brazil,” he declared.

“I think we’re going to be pretty shocking there. Vegas and Abu Dhabi are probably the better ones.”

A minor lock-up into the downhill left-handed Turn 11 hairpin on Lap 25 contributed to Verstappen edging closer to Norris, passing the McLaren driver only two laps later.

McLaren Team Principal Andrea Stella has echoed Norris’ comments on the side’s slow-speed performance, admitting that it’s a problem area that can’t be solved this year.

“Braking into Turn 11 and then traction out of Turn 11 was the most problematic phase from a car performance point of view,” Stella pointed out.

“It was no surprise, it is to do with bumps and with braking and traction in two very low-speed corners, where we said already that we know the car doesn’t perform very well.

“It has been addressed in development but there is no turnaround in this season to fix this.”

Although team-mate Oscar Piastri retired with a water leak after opening lap contact with Esteban Ocon, Norris’ second-place saw McLaren still overtake Aston Martin for fourth place in the Constructors’ standings.