2026 United States Grand Prix - Practice Report

Circuit of The Americas, Friday, 23 October

Find out what happened during FP1 and FP2 in Austin, and get the thoughts of McLaren Mastercard Formula 1 Drivers Lando Norris, Oscar Piastri, and Chief Technical Officer & Chief Designer, Rob Marshall. 

McLaren Mastercard Formula 1 Team completed a productive opening day at the 2026 United States Grand Prix, with Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri gathering valuable data across both Friday practice sessions. The team showed encouraging long-run pace and evaluated a series of minor updates, while the competitive order among the leading teams remained close. 

The Circuit of The Americas’ mix of medium and high-speed corners played to the car’s strengths, while its slower sections provided a useful focus for further development. With the updates performing as expected and the car retaining its high-speed performance, the team will analyse the day’s running overnight as it targets a stronger showing in Qualifying. 

Both drivers went out at the green light in Free Practice 1, keen to maximise track time. They ran with the Medium tyre in the first half of the session before switching to the Soft tyre for a Qualifying sim, and then, at the end of the hour, with the cars up at high-fuel, the team maximised coverage with Oscar switching back to the Used Medium, while Lando continued on the Used Soft.  

The focus in the opening hour was testing minor upgrades to brake ducts and suspension with flo-vis on the car and a series of constant speed limit aero tests. In terms of race preparation, both drivers were learning about the new bumps on the ever-changing COTA surface, working on braking points and energy deployment. Lando finished the session P3 with a 1m36.297s lap time, while Oscar timed a 1m36.786s lap to finish P7. 

The second session was a little more complex. The team made minimal changes across the interval, intent on getting good comparison data between the sessions. Both cars started the session on the Hard tyre. The track seemed to have more grip than in the earlier session, and the lap times were good, but when the drivers made the transition to a Soft tyre in the second half of the hour, both were challenged with track limits in the gusting wind, not feeling the increase in adhesion they would have expected.  

The drivers had strong sectors but didn’t string them together in a whole lap, and Lando finished P7 after recording a 1m36.373s lap time with Oscar ending the session in P8 with a 1m36.387s lap to his name. Track limits were a problem for most drivers during the session, with a surprising number of laps struck off – Turns Nine, 12, 19 and 20 being the most troublesome spots. This continued into the high-fuel long runs, where Oscar ran the Used Soft and Lando the Used Hard. 

The team, nevertheless, has gathered a lot of information from a heavy day of running, and has plenty of data to ponder overnight, both here in Austin and back in Woking. The car looks to have reasonable pace, and the team will focus on extracting more performance to be competitive and in the mix for a top starting position in tomorrow’s Qualifying session. 

In the McLaren Driver Development Programme, the weekend began on Thursday for Ella Lloyd and Ella Stevens, as F1 Academy took to the track at COTA a day earlier than usual for Free Practice and Qualifying. Ella Stevens lined up P12 for the Opening Race today, with Ella Lloyd in P13. Stevens finished the first of the three races this weekend in P9 with Lloyd in P14. Over in Hungary for the final round of the F4 CZE Championship, Ella Häkkinen qualified in P8 in her group ahead of her first race tomorrow.  

“We saw encouraging signs of pace today, but it’s been tough to repeat that lap after lap. We’re focusing on small, targeted tweaks overnight rather than anything drastic to get on top of the car’s handling. We’ll use everything we’ve learned through both sessions today to put the car in the best position we can and make it a little nicer to drive before Qualifying. 

“Compared to the teams ahead we’re a step behind. It’s not a drivability issue as such, it’s focusing on extracting speed consistently because the pace is definitely there. We’re optimistic that incremental changes will bring us closer in the competitive order.” 

“An interesting first day for us. It’s clear that we have a bit of time to find on track. We tried a few different things during the sessions that we now need to fully analyse to see how we can better maximise performance from the car. The main thing we’re struggling with is grip, so we have work to do on that side of things. We’ll see what we can do overnight to get us in a better spot ahead of Qualifying tomorrow.” 

Rob Marshall

Chief Technical Officer & Chief Designer

“We’re relatively satisfied with how the day went. The balance of power amongst the top four teams is quite close – closer than the FP2 standings suggest, a session in which we clearly didn’t maximise our potential. The long runs were quite positive, and the series of minor updates we’ve brought to this track seem to be delivering the expected results in terms of performance. 

“This is a circuit with a number of medium and high-speed corners that suit our car’s characteristics, but there are also plenty of low-speed sections, an area we’re working on intensively.  

“Ferrari seem to be very strong, as is Max Verstappen, who is really strong here, and Mercedes are also competitive: for our part, we’ll try to make the most of the data collected today to challenge these teams."