McLaren Racing
Hear from McLaren Formula 1 drivers Lando Norris, Oscar Piastri, and Team Principal Andrea Stella after the 2024 Formula 1 United States Grand Prix.
Lando drops back to P4 after the first corner of Lap 1, while Oscar retains his position in P5. On Lap 3, a Safety Car is deployed following Hamilton going off into the gravel. Both Lando and Oscar get away cleanly after the Safety Car comes in. Lando pits on Lap 31 for a set of Hard tyres and emerges behind Verstappen. One lap later, Oscar also boxes for the Hard compound. The pit stops shake out with Lando in P4 and Oscar in P5. Steadily, Lando closes the gap to Verstappen, so by Lap 43, he is within a second. The battle for P3 is on, and at Turn 12 on Lap 52, Lando overtakes Verstappen. Before the Chequered Flag falls, Lando is handed a 5-second penalty, meaning he finishes in P4. Oscar crosses the line a few seconds later in P5.
Lando Norris
A frustrating afternoon. Of course, starting first and finishing fourth is not what we hoped, but it was a challenging field with the Ferraris looking strong all weekend. I was confident in a podium finish today, but unfortunately, we lost it because of a decision out of our hands. So, it is a tough weekend, and we have work to do. We’ll debrief as a team and return to Mexico next weekend to secure stronger points in our championship push.
Oscar Piastri
It was a bit of a lonely afternoon, to be honest, starting and finishing in P5. On the positive side, we scored some decent points, which is vital in the Constructors’ Championship fight. We just didn’t quite have the Ferrari pace today. The field is still extremely tight, and this weekend showed that. We’ll be aiming to come back stronger in Mexico.
Andrea Stella
As we anticipated, it was a very tight race in Austin, with three different teams in condition to win.
It’s a shame that Lando’s race was affected initially by Max pushing him off in Turn 1, and then, once the hard job of recovering the position on Max was done, thanks to good pace and strategy, he lost the podium because of a penalty we don’t understand nor agree with. We feel this was an inappropriate way to change the result of a race.
On Oscar’s side, a very well-executed race by him and the team, leading to an important haul of points. Now we reset, turn the page and focus on the next race.
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