McLaren is in a good form in Formula 1, as demonstrated by Lando Norris’ three consecutive podiums before the United States Grand Prix. However, the driver has many doubts about the performance in Austin.
In a press conference available on the FIA website, the British driver admitted that his optimism is not high due to the characteristics of the Circuit of the Americas: ‘I’m not very confident. Simply a lot more low-speed corners, which is not our strong point. I think it’s complicated when you look at it. If we look at Singapore, it’s obvious that we weren’t bad, clearly not as strong as Ferrari, but still not a bad race. But we know that on these types of circuits Mercedes will be very strong, Ferrari will be very strong, Aston was very strong here in the past’.
Although he considers Austin to be more unsuitable for McLaren, Norris still believes he can be in the fight: ‘It’s just not a track… we knew when we went to Qatar that it was going to be a track very suitable for us: a lot of medium/high-speed, which is where we are very strong and almost on par with Red Bull. Less of that here and a lot more low-speed, so I’m definitely not as confident. Nevertheless, I’m not going to say it’s going to be a bad weekend. I think we can still fight. It’s just going to be a much bigger fight, I believe’.