Lando Norris has demanded that some Formula 1 drivers show “a bit more self-awareness” after he had to “avoid a very big crash” on the restart in the Mexico Grand Prix.

Norris had progressed from 17th to 10th in the opening half of the 71-lap encounter when the race was suspended on Lap 33 after Kevin Magnussen crashed at Turn 9.

But he lost out four places on the restart, with replays showing the Briton experienced a lethargic getaway before getting out of the throttle ahead of the approach to Turn 1.

Explaining the incident post-race, Norris reveals that he had to evade a potential crash when multiple drivers were jostling for position on the 890m blast to the first corner.

“I enjoyed the whole thing, apart from my restart,” he said.“I don’t know if you saw it but yeah, I probably had to avoid a very big crash, just people coming across not realising that people can be three abreast.

“So I avoided two extremely big crashes which would have been very nasty so, a bit more self-awareness from some drivers would be great.”

However, Norris has denied that the near miss was responsible for the setback.

He added: “It’s not why I lost out, I lost out because of a bad start but I lost out even more because of these things.”

Norris mounted a charge across the remainder of the race to gain nine places to fifth, prompting McLaren’s Andrea Stella to hail it “one of the best races” he’s seen.

The 23-year-old was equally enthused by McLaren’s pace despite running a compromised setup for overtaking, believing only the top two finishers were quicker.

“The pace was amazing already from Lap 1,” Norris beamed. “There was a lot of management involved and already when I came over the line the first time I got told to cool the engine.

“So we maybe weren’t perfectly set up for these things and I couldn’t push as much as I wanted to at times but at other times I could which was a lot of the second stint.

“The pace was excellent to go from 14th, 15th to 5th, to have better pace than almost everyone bar than [Lewis] Hamilton and Max [Verstappen] was very encouraging for us. So, yeah. As perfect a day as I could have probably asked for.”

Having navigated his way past both Alpine cars, Nico Hulkenberg and Alex Albon, Norris rapidly caught team-mate Oscar Piastri, resulting in McLaren using team orders.

“I didn’t ask to go past or anything,” Norris revealed. “I was happy to race against him. but I think it was clear from [the] pace and points that I eventually went on to get it, that was the correct thing to do from a team perspective. Thanks again to him.”

Norris then proceeded to reel in both Daniel Ricciardo and George Russell, who was struggling increasingly on his Medium tyre.

After dispatching Ricciardo’s AlphaTauri with a bold move around the outside into Turn 4, Norris used the same corner to set up a clever switchback on Russell into Turn 6.

“You know deep down, I know these guys really well, I know Daniel but he’s not going to want to give it up easily at all, right! Two tough ones but enjoyable,” he reflected.

“All the racing got done after the restart. It was fair, tough and hard and that’s when it’s good fun!”

Following his costly Q1 exit in qualifying, McLaren elected to diverge from the rest of the competition by starting Norris on Softs.

Norris believes it “absolutely” worked out for him, crediting his McLaren team for helping him to maximise the best possible result.

“It just helped me in the start, off the line and things like that,” he said. “Turn 1 can go your way, it cannot go your way, but I think we played everything smart. I think played it well.

“Maybe the Safety Car and a couple of things weren’t perfectly timed for us. The VSC and so forth. Otherwise, everything pretty much went our way, and we maximised today, the Softs included.”

McLaren team boss Andrea Stella has hailed Lando Norris’ 12-place climb to fifth in the Mexico City Grand Prix as “one of the best races for a driver that I’ve been part of.”

Having lined up 17th after being caught out in qualifying, Norris had progressed up to 10th when a red flag period was enforced on Lap 33 by Kevin Magnussen’s hefty crash.

However, the Briton encountered a sizeable setback in his recovery bid when he made a sluggish getaway at the standing restart and dropped down four places back to 14th.

But Norris charged through the pack to overtake several cars, culminating with a brilliant switchback manoeuvre on George Russell to seize fifth by the chequered flag.

Asked if it represented Norris’ best-ever drive in the top flight, Stella said: “Well in fairness we were having exactly this conversation on the pit wall as his race engineer Will Joseph turned to me and said to me that’s one of the best of Lando. I said, ‘Will, that’s one of the best at all’.”

Stella believes Norris’ ascent up the order was even more impressive considering the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez is regarded as one of the hardest venues to overtake.

“Overtaking, so many overtakings, in Mexico, where yesterday if you read the quotes everyone is saying it’s so difficult to overtake, while managing PU temperatures, having to do lift and coast. I’m just impressed. One of the best races for a driver that I’ve been part of, let’s say.”

The ex-Ferrari race engineer admits that Norris’ drive reminded him of Fernando Alonso’s race-winning exploits from down the order at the 2012 European Grand Prix.

“Yeah, this race made me think of Valencia 2012, where at the time we started 12th, we won the race,” Stella asserted.

But Stella concedes that the result provided a bittersweet one for McLaren, having failed to utilise its competitiveness in race trim following Norris’ compromised qualifying.

“But this one… you know, on one side we are excited, having seen this kind of masterpiece, on the other side like Lando said on the in-lap, like, guys let’s do a good job on Saturday and we can fight for podiums, so you know the pace was there to fight for podiums.”

Nevertheless, the Italian is determined to look at the positives regarding McLaren’s encouraging pace, while insisting the team must execute cleaner weekends.

He added: “That’s what I’m trying to say, there’s a little element of frustration, but at the same time if you asked me yesterday I would not have thought we could overtake so many cars.

“So I’d rather take the positives out of this race and I hope that the entire team at the factory and the fans receive the same sort of message: we are there, we don’t give up, we are competitive, but we need to do a better job overall the whole race weekend.”

Lando Norris blamed a “silly” error at Turn 12 on his one completed qualifying lap for his shock Q1 exit at the Mexico City Grand Prix.

After featuring in the top eight through all three practice sessions, Norris had been earmarked as one of the potential candidates for pole position on Saturday.

Norris was one of a select few drivers to venture out for the first qualifying segment on the Medium compound but languished in the drop zone as the time ebbed away.

Having encountered a slight moment in the middle sector on his only timed run, McLaren instructed Norris to pit for a change onto the Soft tyre to ensure he progressed to Q2.

However, the Briton was forced to abort his final flying lap when yellow flags were waved for a spin from Fernando Alonso at Turn 3, preventing many drivers from improving.

Among them was Norris, leaving the McLaren driver eliminated in 19th place.

Expanding on the events of his troubled Q1 session, Norris said: “Many people [went out on the medium first]. Oscar [Piastri] did, the Ferraris did, the Mercedes did. It was just something we had planned already.

“We had one issue which was when I didn’t complete the lap, we thought there was enough time to do so… we still had the Soft tyre to go. I just didn’t get to set a banker lap, that would be my first problem for you.

“Then I had one opportunity until the yellow flag at the end which is a shame. I had one lap in the middle and I messed up into T12, I went on the exit kerb and locked up a little bit and went off. That turned out to be my only lap of qualifying so, that was it.”

Norris admits that he had been encountering problems with braking into Turn 12 during FP3, which led to him overstepping the mark and losing time at the corner in qualifying.

The 23-year-old concedes that he pushed more than was needed to post a time that would have been sufficient for a Q2 spot.

Asked if overheating tyres was an issue, Norris retorted: “No, I just braked too late. My first Medium lap I didn’t brake into Turn 12 so that would have been my first time.

“If I braked too late into Turn 12 on the Medium, maybe on the Soft I would have pulled it back.

“It was close, I thought I had to push more than I had to. I was easily in, so it was quite silly of myself to push quite as much as that.

“It’s where I was a bit down, the one thing I had to improve after FP3 was the braking into Turn 12. Yeah, the first Soft lap was my first time to try and improve on that a little bit. It was my first push lap into Turn 12 and I just overdid it a little bit.”

Prior to this weekend, Norris had been on a career-best run of four consecutive podium finishes in Formula 1, elevating him up to sixth place in the Drivers’ Championship.

Norris is adamant that adding to his points tally is the aim but remains wary that the difficulty in passing at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez could halt his progress.

“The easy one to say is that points are the target,” he said regarding his prospects. “We were easily there today, pace is very good. Race pace is another question.

“So yeah, pass as many cars as we need to, obviously sticking with targets and things like that, there’s still plenty of opportunities. It’s still not a very easy track to do a lot. I can’t see many overtaking opportunities, the slipstreams not very big at all because of the air density so yeah.

“I think we were easily quick enough to be top six, so plenty of opportunities to get back tomorrow.”

Lando Norris admits he is wary McLaren could have peaked too early in the weekend at the Mexico City Grand Prix after ending within a tenth of the fastest time in FP2.

Ahead of the weekend’s running, Norris insisted that he was anticipating the upcoming rounds in Mexico and Brazil being “tricky” for McLaren against its main rivals.

However, the Briton wound up fourth in FP1 before slotting into second in the second practice hour, only 0.119s shy of Max Verstappen at the top of the timesheets.

But having acknowledged multiple drivers were within “three-tenths” of the ultimate pace, Norris is cautious he might’ve displayed McLaren’s hand prematurely.

“I think it was a good Friday, a good start to the weekend anyway,” he said. “It’s close; the thing is it could swing very quickly either way.

“I did a good lap, maybe too good for this early in the weekend but yeah. We will continue to try and improve, but it’s a good start.”

While the Mercedes drivers were adamant there’s a lot more to come after a subdue Friday, Norris notes that McLaren won’t be able to unlock much more pace overnight.

Asked if there were any potential changes that could be made to bolster McLaren’s prospects even further, Norris replied: “Not a lot. I think we started the weekend off well.

“We generally start weekends off quite well and have a good idea where to put the car to begin with. It’s not far off normally where we end the weekend.

“There’s not a lot to gain through the weekend. There’s always little things and those little things add up.

“There’s still stuff to improve, also in my driving little things here and there, but to challenge the Red Bull is going to be tough around here.”

Meanwhile, McLaren team-mate Oscar Piastri encountered his debut experience at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez on Friday and the unique altitude at the venue.

The Australian lagged behind Norris, but he recorded a best time in both sessions that was good enough to be classified inside the top 10, slipping from sixth to ninth in FP2.

“Low grip! Definitely! It was a good first day I think,” he concurred with Norris.

“Car pace looks reasonable, the track is very low grip and takes a lot of getting used to, but it seems cool. I feel like I built up through the day and seemed like a reasonable FP2 session so still some things to tidy up and find time tomorrow but looking reasonable.”

Friday’s running was disrupted by Pirelli granting the teams an opportunity to run its 2024 prototype tyres at a race weekend, while the latter stages of the second session were interrupted by lingering rain showers.

Piastri is therefore hopeful of getting through a smoother programme in FP3 to ensure he can be in an optimal position for qualifying.

Looking ahead to Saturday’s on-track action, Piastri said: “I think some more laps, we will probably have some more qualifying attempts and stuff like that.

“The program today has been a bit more jumbled for everyone I think. So it’s a bit harder to get a proper read, but just more attempts. That’s all I usually need every weekend and hopefully by qualifying, it’s in the right place.”

McLaren Formula 1 drivers Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri are expecting the next two rounds in Mexico and Brazil to be “tricky” for the team against its closest rivals.

Despite Norris predicting that McLaren would struggle last time out at the Circuit of the Americas, the Briton led 27 laps of the race and wound up third on the road, which became second when Lewis Hamilton was disqualified for a technical infringement.

The result extended Norris’ run of consecutive F1 podium finishes to four and elevated McLaren above Aston Martin into fourth in the Constructors’ Championship.

However, Norris, who encountered trouble with tyre degradation in the closing stages, insists McLaren’s race was flattered by gaining track position over its competitors.

Asked if he was surprised by the range of circuits on the calendar McLaren’s MCL60 continues to be competitive at, Norris said: “Yes, in a way, I think in terms of pace, yeah.

“But in qualifying, you didn’t expect to be as high up, which just set us up very well for all the races and the race pace was good. Maybe not so much on Sunday, you know you look at the race pace I had quite poor race pace compared to quite a few different cars.

“The Ferrari was pretty alright to be honest. The Aston’s were pretty quick, quicker than me, so, you know I think it was just a good weekend which made things look even better.

“Yeah, I think we just made the most of every situation we’re in, you know, pretty good laps in qualifying and things like that, which makes everything was a bit better. But yeah, still to be as competitive as we were in a circuit we didn’t quite expect to be was a good thing.”

Last weekend, Norris conceded that McLaren’s best chance at achieving a victory this year had likely evaded the team at the high-speed Japan and Qatar circuits.

Despite the remarkable progress made over the course of this season, Norris mentioned that McLaren squandered a lot of lap time at the slow-speed Turn 11 hairpin at COTA.

The 23-year-old therefore suspects that the stop-start nature of the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez track configuration this weekend will hamper McLaren’s prospects.

“I think the main thing is there’s no strengths of our car here this weekend, maybe a little straight-line braking, but there’s no medium/high speed which is where we are very competitive, it’s where we get a lot of lap time back in races for example it’s where we we’ve always had to push high speeds, which is not something you necessarily want to do,” he explained.

“But to make up for a lack of slow speed performance, we have to push in high speed which causes more tyre temperature, more degradation. It’s just kind of two things that go wrong for us very quickly, which is cool and stuff. You get away with it, but when it is as hot as it was in Texas, that’s what led to a slightly worse performance on Sunday.

“But just in general, I think one or two very tough weekends, coming up both here and Brazil, very few medium [or] high-speed corners, a lot of very slow speed, second gear, third gear, which is just where we’re very weak. I think what’s going to make it, let’s say maybe a bit trickier is just our contrast of the last few weekends have been so good.

“So I think we’re just gonna see maybe a little contrast and we’re going to see like Aston, for example, I think that’s going to be very competitive and Mercedes, I think it will be very competitive here just because it’s a lot of stop-start, second gear, third gear, second gear corners where you just lose a lot of lap time through minimum speed.

“It’s nice when we’ve had surprises when we’ve actually done a bit better,” he continued. “But I think we know the ones which we definitely want to struggle with and we’ve kind of always struggled with a little bit which is here and Brazil. The final two races are just question marks at the moment.”

McLaren team-mate Piastri, who retired after unfortunate first-lap contact in Austin, agrees that Mexico will likely provide a sterner test for the Woking-based squad.

Asked if he thinks the track will suit McLaren’s current package, the Australian rookie replied: “Not particularly. Not like some other circuits have.

“In saying that, I think Austin was maybe better than our expectations in terms of performance. But yeah, we’ll have to wait and see. It’s a very different circuit here.

“It’s my first time here. So there’ll be a lot of learning for myself to do. But yeah, hopefully we can still be in the fight with the teams we’re around.”

Lando Norris believes it’s now unlikely that McLaren will secure a Formula 1 win before the end of 2023 despite classifying second in the United States Grand Prix.

Norris celebrated his 100th race in the top flight by notching a fourth consecutive F1 podium finish, elevating him up to sixth position in the Drivers’ Championship.

Before the weekend, Norris had downplayed McLaren’s prospects at the Circuit of the Americas, insisting the previous high-speed circuits had flattered the team’s standing.

However, the Briton wound up second in qualifying and led 27 laps of the race before eventually succumbing to Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton to come home third.

Norris, who was promoted to second after Hamilton’s disqualification, outlined the Qatar event represented his last opportunity of 2023 to score his maiden F1 victory.

“Do I think our best chances have gone? I would say yes,” Norris conceded. “I think Qatar was our best chance of winning a race. And I missed out on that one.

“I don’t want to say no, I don’t say like never. I think there’s no super high-speed, Suzuka-style, Qatar-style circuits left which is where we’re strong.”

“I don’t think they’re any good ones [tracks] for us coming up. I think our best have gone.

“I just want to be hopeful that we can do good results and I think we can still fight for podiums but these guys are too quick for me.”

Assessing the remaining four rounds on the calendar, Norris concedes that he’s “not looking forward to Brazil” and believes the final two venues will suit McLaren more.

Norris repeatedly issued throughout the Austin weekend that McLaren’s MCL60 car continues to lag behind its main rivals through the slow-speed sections of the lap.

“If you looked at the GPS overlays of how bad we are in the slow speed [corners], I’m not looking forward to Brazil,” he declared.

“I think we’re going to be pretty shocking there. Vegas and Abu Dhabi are probably the better ones.”

A minor lock-up into the downhill left-handed Turn 11 hairpin on Lap 25 contributed to Verstappen edging closer to Norris, passing the McLaren driver only two laps later.

McLaren Team Principal Andrea Stella has echoed Norris’ comments on the side’s slow-speed performance, admitting that it’s a problem area that can’t be solved this year.

“Braking into Turn 11 and then traction out of Turn 11 was the most problematic phase from a car performance point of view,” Stella pointed out.

“It was no surprise, it is to do with bumps and with braking and traction in two very low-speed corners, where we said already that we know the car doesn’t perform very well.

“It has been addressed in development but there is no turnaround in this season to fix this.”

Although team-mate Oscar Piastri retired with a water leak after opening lap contact with Esteban Ocon, Norris’ second-place saw McLaren still overtake Aston Martin for fourth place in the Constructors’ standings.

Lando Norris admits he “didn’t have enough tyres” to deny Lewis Hamilton overtaking him for second place in the closing stages of the United States Grand Prix.

Having qualified on the front row, Norris seized the lead at the start from polesitter Charles Leclerc and led all the way up until Lap 27 when Max Verstappen overtook him into Turn 12.

Following a failed undercut attempt on the Red Bull driver at the second round of stops, Norris was well-placed to retain second place until Lewis Hamilton mounted a late charge.

Fitted with the Medium tyre against the Hard on the McLaren, Norris succumbed to Hamilton’s pressure and eventually trailed home third, 10.7s off Verstappen at the front.

Norris attributed his plight in the closing laps to high degradation that almost opened the door for Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz to prevent him from scoring a fourth consecutive podium.

“Yes, just leading the race. I could control it a lot, but just not enough today,” he said. “But I’m happy. It was a good race for my side.

“We knew our struggles, we knew what was going to be difficult today. And it was just the degradation but the pace over the first 10 laps of every stint, the pace in the beginning was strong.

“I just couldn’t hold on long enough. So we’re getting there. Progress, progress every weekend. Just some more steps needed.”

Norris was left scrambling for traction through the final sector as Hamilton caught onto his rear at the end of Lap 48, setting him up for an overtake into Turn 1 on the next tour.

However, Hamilton’s dive to the inside was met by a late move from Norris, which the Mercedes driver avoided by lifting off and cutting underneath to secure second place.

Norris has defended his robust swipe across the front of Hamilton, adding that he was powerless to hold his compatriot back on rapidly ageing tyres.

“I had to try, right? But I just couldn’t do it,” he conceded. “I didn’t have enough tyres left at the end, you saw how quickly he pulled away at the end.

“So you know, I always had to look after my own race. I did the best I could.

“I had to push and look after the tyres, and it was just too difficult today. So maybe if it was a cooler track it would have suited us a little bit more but it wasn’t. But I’m still happy.

“The team have done an excellent job to finish on the podium here. It was better than we were expecting coming into the weekend. So very happy.”

Lando Norris rued needing only “one more lap” to overtake Charles Leclerc for third place in the United States Grand Prix Sprint race.

Starting fourth, Norris lost out at the start to the Ferrari of Carlos Sainz, who was the only driver in the whole field to opt for the Soft tyre rather than the Medium compound.

Although Sainz began to struggle as early as Lap 7, it took three laps for Norris to eventually edge ahead of his ex-team-mate into Turn 12, leaving him 5.4s behind Leclerc.

While Norris would rapidly reduce Leclerc’s advantage across the remaining five laps of the 19-lap encounter, the Briton came up 0.8s short come the chequered flag.

“It was a good afternoon, the pace was very strong, just struggled to get past the Ferrari of Carlos,” Norris said. “But the pace was way better than them, I caught Charles quite a bit, like five seconds in four or five laps.

“Good signs for tomorrow, I just struggled to get past. One more lap and I would have had Charles and been on the podium again. A near miss, but otherwise good signs.”

The Sprint race marked the first time in the entire weekend that the drivers and teams had the opportunity to collect long-run data ahead of Sunday’s 56-lap grand prix.

Despite being one of the fastest cars on the track in the closing stages of the Sprint, Norris asserts that the tyre degradation was “pretty awful” at the Circuit of the Americas.

“I think some questions were answered today, I think there’s still many more tomorrow,” he noted. “Tyre degradation was still pretty awful, even though we could keep kind of a consistent pace.

“You do feel like the tyres are finished already after three or four laps, so it’s a struggle, difficult to look after everything. Not making any mistakes I guess that’s the most difficult thing to do.”

Norris, who will start second, is optimistic that McLaren can battle Mercedes, accepting that it will be inevitable Max Verstappen will climb through from sixth at some stage.

“The pace is good, pretty similar to Mercedes I would have thought, so hopefully we can give them a good battle, but I’m sure Max will probably be coming through,” he concluded.

Meanwhile, it was a challenging day for team-mate Oscar Piastri, who was unable to replicate the exploits that saw him win the Sprint race last time out in Qatar.

The Australian struggled throughout, dropping from fifth to 10th and ending up 23s behind Norris in the sister MCL60.

Piastri made contact with Sainz on the approach to Turn 1, but he believes battling other cars and ruining his tyres in the early stages cost him any shot at points.

Pressed on whether the incident with Sainz damaged his race, Piastri said: “I’m not sure to be honest, everything felt reasonably okay, so I’ll have to look into if there’s any damage.

“I also had a lot of battles with cars at the start and maybe took a lot out the tyres from that, so something to look at.”

Having lamented a mistake on his final qualifying run on Friday, Piastri admits it will be tough to make progress from 10th place amid a compact pecking order this weekend.

Asked if he predicts he can be more competitive in the main race, Piastri answered: “I hope so, everyone’s very tight this weekend, very evenly matched.

“It’s not going to be easy to make progress forward, but we’ll see what we can do and clearly a lot to try and learn overnight.”

Lando Norris believes he could have landed pole position for the United States Grand Prix without a minor error at Turn 11 on his final lap.

Despite having his first run in Q3 deleted for exceeding track limits, Norris still secured a front-row starting berth for Sunday’s race.

Norris wound up 0.130s away from Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc at the end of a pulsating hour, edging out Lewis Hamilton’s Mercedes for second place by only nine-thousandths.

The Briton admits that the team was anticipating its recent podium-scoring momentum to be halted by the slower-speed sections at the Circuit of the Americas.

Although Norris asserts McLaren was slower than the teams it predicted to be behind, he concedes the Woking squad ended up closer to the ultimate pace than he’d expected.

“I think when you realise where Max probably should have been in terms of overall pace, I still think the Red Bulls probably close to being the quickest,” he said. “And I didn’t expect to beat Ferrari, so I think we’re in probably the position we expected to be.

“Probably closer to pole than I was expecting. I think there was still that little chance to potentially get it today. So probably similar to Charles, you know, pleasantly surprised to be sitting here in the top three, first of all, but then especially in P2. So a good day for us.

“A little bit surprising, you know, because we know mainly the slow speed is a normally a big weakness for us, and there’s less high speed here comparing to Qatar and things like that. So I’m happy with today.”

However, Norris, competing in his 100th F1 grand prix this weekend, believes that a misjudgement into the left-hander at Turn 11 before the kilometre-long back straight dented his chances of landing pole.

Expanding on the moment, Norris, who rued letting top spot in qualifying escape his grasp last time out in Qatar, explained: “Yeah, Turn 11, that’s where it all went wrong, I think the rest… maybe a little bit the last corner.

“Turn 11, we’ve been struggling a little bit with just consistency of car and braking performance. And the car just turned a bit better than I was expecting. And I mean, I braked later, but then the car also rotated better. So I was expecting to almost miss the apex a bit more. And I ended up just clipping the kerb. And when you clip the kerb in 11 it’s the run the whole way down the straight that you lose.

“So it’s just a half-a-tenth mistake initially, because you get on power a bit later. But then because you get on power later, you lose easily another half a tenth or sometimes more all the way down to Turn 12.

“The rest of the lap, apart from maybe the last corner was, I think, very strong. I was very happy with Turn 1 and Sector 1. Just two places I feel like I probably lost it today.”

Norris also downplayed that only possessing one new set of tyres for the final stage hindered him, insisting that the missed opportunity was down to his mistakes.

“If I just did a good lap, maybe then that could have been pole,” he stated. “I just made a few mistakes.

“I’m sure a lot of people made mistakes today. It’s not an easy track to put it all together just bad tarmac in areas and slippery and wind in certain corners, bumps.

“So I think just a lot of things going on, so still to be sitting here, I’m happy with that.

Lando Norris admits he’s “not so confident” that McLaren can repeat its recent podium exploits in this weekend’s United States Grand Prix.

After both McLaren drivers ended up inside the top three in Japan, Norris and team-mate Oscar Piastri followed that up by securing podium spots again in Qatar last time out.

However, Norris is wary that those headline results arrived on high-speed circuit configurations that have consistently played to the strengths of McLaren’s MCL60 car.

Therefore, the Briton, who is embarking upon his 100th Formula 1 grand prix start this weekend, is anticipating a tight battle behind Red Bull at the Circuit of the Americas.

Asked if he was confident McLaren could replicate its Qatar pace at the Austin track, Norris said: “Not so confident, lots of slow speed corners which is not our strength.

“We know at these kinds of circuits Mercedes will be very strong, Ferrari, Aston [Martin].

“We knew we’d be strong at Qatar, but with the slow-speed corners I’m definitely not as confident, but nevertheless, I’m not saying it’s going to be a bad weekend.

“I think we can still fight. It’s just going to be a much bigger fight than we think.”

Despite recovering to third, Norris rued potentially missing out on a win after having both his lap times in Q3 deleted for exceeding track limits, leaving him 10th.

Norris also lamented a mistake in the dying embers of the Sprint Shootout that allowed Piastri to pip him to top spot, paving the way for the Australian to clinch victory.

Questioned on whether he would alter his approach to avoid a repeat of the track limits fiasco that hampered his victory hopes in Qatar, Norris replied: “Not much, the margins are so small. The thing which made it all worse is that I should have been on pole on both, I say both occasions, but at worst I should have had a first and second.

“When I realised what could and should have been, I felt there were a lot of missed opportunities on my side.

“There have been plenty of other races where I haven’t made mistakes and I felt like I have performed very well, but the ones that get picked up are the bad races,” he added.

“It happens to everyone, I’ll try and make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

McLaren’s substantial 47-point haul in Qatar enabled the side to close to within only 11 points of Aston Martin in the battle for fourth place in the Constructors’ Championship.

But Norris has also set his sights on reeling in Ferrari, who endured a troublesome weekend that saw Carlos Sainz ruled out before the race with a fuel system problem.

Sainz, though, is optimistic that Ferrari will be able to protect its 79-point buffer across the remaining five rounds, despite conceding McLaren currently has a stronger package.

“I think if we don’t have any more DNS or DNFs, I think we should be able to keep them behind,” Sainz asserted.

“That doesn’t mean I don’t think they will beat us in most of the races from here until the rest of the season if all things align.

“They do have a very quick car now, and they look to be the only ones that can sometimes bother Red Bull; unless it’s a track more like Singapore where maybe it’s a bit more us.”

Sainz adds that he and Norris have already discussed their teams’ respective chances this weekend.

“I was playing golf with Lando yesterday, we were discussing whether they will be ahead this weekend, if we would be ahead in the quali or race,” he added.

“But basically we don’t know, so let’s see tomorrow.”