Circuit of the Americas, Friday, 20 October

Hear from McLaren Formula 1 drivers Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri, and Team Principal Andrea Stella after qualifying for the United States Grand Prix.

“I’m very happy with P2, the pace in the car has been great and I put in a good lap to get on the front row on Sunday. There was maybe a little more in it, but I’m sure Charles [Leclerc] will be thinking that too, so overall I'm pleased with qualifying. We’ve got another chance to score a good result and important points tomorrow, so we’ll turn our focus to that now and aim to go one better in the Sprint.”

“Not my best qualifying. The pace in the car was quite strong, I just didn’t get it together. We’ll try again tomorrow. The pace we have is pretty solid, so if we leave out the mistakes, we should be able to get a better result in the Sprint Shootout tomorrow.”

“As usual here in Austin, we had tricky conditions. The track was hot, and the soft tyres are only good for one lap, so the drivers had one go at making their fast laps count. Add to that the challenge of track limits and the result is a very tricky session.   

“Overall, we’re happy with the potential of the car, at a track which we expected to be less suitable than recent events. Lando secured a front row and did a great good job. He struggled a little to repeat the strong pace shown in Q1, but it came back when it counted in Q3. On Oscar’s side, laptime in Q3 moved away from him due to a large wheelspin event at the exit of Turn 11, which overheated the tyres and largely compromised the rest of his lap.   

“We’re in a position to score good points on Sunday, which is our ultimate aim this weekend. We also have all the Sprint Saturday ahead of us, and a car with promising pace. We will take the learnings from today and aim to carry this momentum into tomorrow.”

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