Mark Hughes: Why McLaren is suddenly having problems

Despite being the Formula 1 car that was fast anywhere, on any day, on any track, the McLaren looked a bit ordinary on Friday at the Circuit of The Americas.

Lando Norris in the faster McLaren race car was more than two tenths off the pace in sprint qualifying, while his teammate Oscar Piastri retired in SQ1 after losing his time due to track restrictions.

Despite being an inconsistent car, with Max Verstappen even calling it a “monster” (in a bad sense) a few races ago, the Red Bull was good enough for Max to take the sprint pole.

Could Friday in Austin mark another turning point in the story of this season, with the fight for the 2024 world title really dependent on Norris consistently beating Verstappen with great success in the remaining races?

Both teams arrived here with significant upgrades – as did Mercedes, for whom George Russell qualified superbly second fastest despite a time-wasting moment on the exit of Turn 1 – but Norris wasn't particularly impressed with those on the MCL38, saying he felt no advantage .

Ferrari dominated the training times – and was the fastest in SQ1 and SQ2 on the medium tires. However, since they switched to soft tires for SQ3, the Ferrari wasn't quite as balanced, so Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz were in third and fifth place.

At the Circuit of The Americas, the McLaren was just as fast as the Ferrari, but definitely slower than the modernized Red Bull and Mercedes. Norris' lap wasn't perfect – he understeered quite badly in the last two corners – but it seemed like there was no happy window between speed through the fast Esses in Sector 1 and still good front tire temperatures at the end of the lap.

On the medium tires in SQ1 and SQ2 he was consistently a few tenths behind in sector 1, but was second fastest (after Sainz) in the final sector. On the soft tires in SQ3, Norris brought a lot more speed into the Esses, but later in the lap this seemed to come at the expense of the front tires.

Although he significantly improved his speed through the Esses in SQ3, he was still well behind Verstappen in this section. Max's Red Bull, with its new floor edge treatment and different rear bodywork, was awesome there, a full 9km/h faster than the McLaren approaching Turn 6.

It is noteworthy that Verstappen brakes there a few times to support the change of direction. But this speed through the esses didn't put as much strain on the Red Bull's tires as Norris's.

This track requires careful handling of the soft tires, even in a qualifying lap, and Verstappen seemed to have that well under control. He wasn't the quickest everywhere, but he kept the tires in perfect shape, with just a small run-wide in turn 13 making the lap anything but perfect.

“If you look at the lap, there are a few small balance issues to sort out,” said Verstappen, “but being ahead of the others is really positive.” I'm aware that there are a lot of fast cars around me, but I I'm satisfied and it's definitely a positive outcome.

“Looking ahead to the rest of the weekend, we just want to make the car a little drivable and make sure we can all handle the tires well in the race.”

Through the slowly uphill turns 7 and 8, Norris regains all the time he lost to Verstappen through the Esses – and more. For long stretches of the lap he was actually ahead of the Red Bull. But in the last two corners the lap was lost horribly. How much of this was Norris' imperfect tire management on the lap, how much was the McLaren's characteristics? The timing bar didn't care.

“Honestly, I struggled with balance and setup all day,” Norris said afterwards. In a way I'm happy with fourth place because I feel like it could have been a lot worse, but my lap was shocking. So yeah, not a terrible day, could have been worse, could have been better.”

Actually the biggest threat to Verstappen was Russell in the Mercedes with the new floor. This car had looked pretty poor in morning practice as the team set about understanding its new features, but it was brought into good optimal condition at the start of qualifying.

Lewis Hamilton was only second behind Leclerc in SQ1 and as usual Hamilton was very quick through the esses, almost on a par with Verstappen.

The Mercedes responded well to the soft tires, and if Russell hadn't overdone himself slightly in Turn 1 – giving him a time-wasting moment of oversteer over the exit curbs that continued to punish him throughout Sector 1 – he would have That may have done, taking pole instead of 0.022 seconds behind Verstappen.

Hamilton's lap went wrong as he stalled at Turn 12, probably because he was distracted by flags due to a spin by Franco Colapinto. Previously, he had actually been quicker than Verstappen in Sector 1, although it is not known what the penalty his tires would have suffered in the demanding long corners of the final sector.