AUSTIN, Texas — McLaren walked away from qualifying for the Formula One United States Grand Prix feeling it had left more on the table after Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris settled for seventh and eighth on the grid Saturday at Circuit of The Americas.

In windy and constantly changing conditions, both drivers struggled to consistently extract maximum performance from the MCL40, leaving the team on the fourth row for Sunday’s race despite showing flashes of front-running pace throughout the weekend.

Piastri advanced through qualifying using an alternate strategy that included running the medium tire in Q1 before switching to softs. The Australian ultimately posted a best lap of 1 minute, 34.803 seconds to secure seventh.

Norris appeared capable of challenging further up the order after reaching Q3, but his final improvement was deleted for exceeding track limits at the penultimate corner. The Briton was classified eighth after his best legal lap of 1:35.049.

The result capped a difficult qualifying session for McLaren, which had shown competitive long-run speed on Friday but struggled to consistently piece together complete laps in gusty conditions.

“We obviously wanted more from today,” Piastri said. “There’s speed in the package, we just haven’t unlocked it yet.”

Norris echoed that frustration after seeing a potential improvement erased.

“The car had the pace to be further up the order, but I didn’t put the lap together,” Norris said. “Starting eighth makes tomorrow difficult, but the race is a long one.”

Team principal Andrea Stella said the outcome accurately reflected McLaren’s position relative to its rivals, while acknowledging Norris’ deleted lap and execution issues during Q3 cost the team a better starting position.

“The conditions were very tricky,” Stella said. “The wind and changing track conditions made it difficult to replicate a corner from one lap to the next.”

Despite the disappointing grid positions, McLaren remains optimistic about Sunday’s race. Tire degradation and multiple strategic options are expected to play a significant role, and the team believes its race pace could allow both drivers to move forward and challenge for a podium finish.

Championship leader Kimi Antonelli claimed pole position with a lap of 1:34.035, edging Red Bull teammates Max Verstappen and Isack Hadjar.