Oscar Piastri <\/a>had a frustrating afternoon, finishing a disappointing fifth, just ahead of Mercedes\u2019 George Russell<\/a>.<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n Unlike their rivals, McLaren didn\u2019t gain any data from the sprint race.<\/p>\n Piastri and Norris crashed out on the opening lap of the sprint following an unfortunate multi-car collision.<\/p>\n With parc ferm\u00e9 conditions lifted after the sprint race on Saturday, teams were allowed to make crucial setup changes.<\/p>\n Kravitz\u2019s theory for McLaren\u2019s struggles<\/p>\n While Norris\u2019 race was compromised by being stuck behind Leclerc, it looked as if he still had similar pace to Verstappen in front.<\/p>\n However, Verstappen might have had pace in hand, given the margin he had built up due to Leclerc.<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n In the ground-effect era, ride height and ensuring the plank isn\u2019t excessively worn has been a balancing act for all teams.<\/p>\n Charles Leclerc and Lando Norris<\/p>\n Both Ferraris were disqualified from the Chinese GP due to excessive wear – an issue that has plagued them all season.<\/p>\n Kravitz thinks McLaren didn\u2019t optimise this, hence their lack of pace relative to earlier in the season.<\/p>\n \u201cPiastri was never anywhere near Hamilton. And it all began at the start of the weekend,\u201d Kravitz said after the race.<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n \u201cThen it was made worse with an OK practice session. I mean, it was fine. It was all made worse for McLaren in the Sprint Race because of Oscar\u2019s ill-judged move with Nico Hulkenberg at the front that hit him into Lando Norris, and because neither McLaren did the Sprint Race, they didn\u2019t know how the car was going to be on its ride heights.<\/p>\n \u201cThey didn\u2019t know how to set the ride height so as to be in the perfect position to be as close to the ground and get a nice downforce, but not wear away the legality plank.<\/p>\n \u201cThe piece of wood they have underneath the car to stop the car from running too close to the ground.<\/p>\n \u201cSo, they had to be conservative. McLaren had to raise the car up a little bit and give themselves some margin. So, performance just ebbed away.<\/p>\n \u201cRed Bull, Max won the Sprint. They knew exactly where to suspend their car, where to run their car so that they\u2019d be as close to the ground as possible, giving maximum downforce and not wear away the plank. They got it spot on.<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n \u201cFerrari got it spot on. Mercedes got it spot on. But McLaren had to take some margin. And that was problem number one.\u201d<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n Subscribe to our F1 Newsletter<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sky Sports F1 analyst Ted Kravitz believes McLaren\u2019s struggles at the United States Grand Prix were due to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":228433,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,817,826,1737,913,806,805,803,804,2333,85],"class_list":["post-228432","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-f1","tag-ferrari","tag-lando-norris","tag-mclaren","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-oscar-piastri","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228432","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=228432"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228432\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/228433"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=228432"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=228432"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=228432"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Charles](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/xpb_1380396_hires.jpg\")
<\/p>\n