Lando Norris has been reflecting on what caused McLaren to \u201cstruggle\u201d more in Qualifying for the United States Grand Prix, with the Briton \u2013 who took P2 \u2013 suggesting that he had \u201cno chance\u201d of taking pole position.<\/p>\n
After initially displaying good pace by leading first practice when the weekend at the Circuit of The Americas got underway, Norris<\/a> just missed out on the top spot to Max Verstappen<\/a> in Friday\u2019s Sprint Qualifying session later in the day.<\/p>\n The gap was wider, however, in Saturday\u2019s Qualifying<\/a>, with Verstappen\u2019s pole-setting effort of 1m 32.510s proving to be almost three tenths quicker than Norris\u2019 time. Further back, the other McLaren<\/a> of Oscar Piastri<\/a> had an even trickier day in sixth place.<\/p>\n Looking back on the session after jumping out of the car, Norris gave his take on the possible reasons why the papaya team had a slightly tougher outing.<\/p>\n \u201cI improved by a tenth or half a tenth,\u201d Norris said of his final effort in Q3. \u201cIt was a bit more of a struggle today for whatever reason.<\/p>\n \u201cYesterday, it was just quite comfortable, and I don\u2019t know if it\u2019s just that everyone else has improved a bit or the wind today hurt us a bit more, but we were both struggling quite a bit more today just to put the laps in and be as quick as this guy [Verstappen].<\/p>\n \u201cWe were pushing and I\u2019m still happy with P2. It could have been worse, but there was no chance we could have gotten pole today.\u201d<\/p>\n