McLaren took a risk that didn’t pay off as the Lando Norris team used medium sized tires at the start of qualifying already give up and go back to compound software.
Lando Norris accepts blame for disastrous qualifying results at the Mexican Grand Prix.
The Briton has been Max Verstappen’s main rival in recent weeks.. But the McLaren star was left in 18th place after a miserable Saturday session ended much earlier than he would have liked.
McLaren initially sent Norris and Oscar Piastri on medium tyres, clearly hoping to save a pair of softs for the latter and believing they had enough pace on hand.. They’re not the only ones doing this: Ferrari and Mercedes also started with yellow tires.
But the Woking-based team was the only one to drop out and pit its riders before getting a time on the board. This means they only have a few minutes to set a time fast enough for the Q2 position.
Piastri succeeded without much fanfare, but Norris did not.. His smooth opening lap was cut short when he made a mistake in the tricky second sector, while his final attempt was hampered when Fernando Alonso spun his Aston Martin and brought yellow flags.
Although he seemed confused by the call to change the tire compound, Norris did not want to blame anyone but himself for his poor results.. “For some reason, I was asked to box, [but] the speed was good,” he said after practice.
“Obviously something was wrong, but it wasn’t a problem.. I just made a few mistakes in one lap.. There was obviously a yellow at the end of Fernando’s section.
“So, yeah, this opportunity, this trip that I was given, I didn’t organize it.. It blew up and that was it.. We turned around and went straight back.. We’ll talk about it again later, but I did it one round and I didn’t do it. It was my fault.”
Piastri not only qualified for Q2 but also qualified for the final part of the session. The Australian eventually qualified seventh, but felt his car had more potential and seemed a bit disappointed with the result.
“The initial pace looked good, we had a decent Q1, a decent Q2, we just struggled in Q3 for some reason,” said the high-flying rookie.. “It just didn’t really come together in Q3 and I’m really not sure why. That’s probably the most frustrating part right now.. We’ll look at it and see what we can do tomorrow.”