McLaren boss criticizes Lando Norris, claims pole was possible in the F1 Mexican GP

McLaren boss Andrea Stella has criticized Lando Norris and claimed that pole position was possible at the F1 Mexican GP qualifying. The session was a strange one for everyone involved, as drivers did find it hard to hook up a lap together.

This was precisely what led to an early exit for Oscar Piastri in Q1, as the Australian went off track on his final push lap. In Q1 and Q2, Lando Norris in his McLaren appeared to be in control and was a step ahead of everyone.

That did change, however, in Q3, when Lando Norris was unable to make a substantial gain on his Q2 lap time. On the contrary, the Ferrari of Carlos Sainz and the Red Bull of championship rival Max Verstappen were able to find enough improvement to jump Norris.

Lando Norris will now start the race from P3, while Carlos Sainz will be in pole position with Max Verstappen alongside him on the front row. It does appear, however, that McLaren boss Andrea Stella felt that there was more lap time on the time that Norris couldn't achieve.

Pointing out that the car was capable of pole but the driver made mistakes over a lap, Stella told Sky Sports F1.

"Overall, I would say the car during this qualifying session was competitive, was in condition to score the pole position today, even though Carlos in the final session kind of raised the bar quite a bit. But if we take the natural progression, then with Lando we might have been there."

He added,

"We have to say that the two laps in Q3 weren’t great. On the first one there were a couple of mistakes and this overheated the tyres and then the tyres were going away from Lando. In the second one again he wasn’t very clean but it was important to make sure he was decent enough to be there on the first or second row."

---

Lando Norris feels he reached the peak performance of McLaren in Q2

Lando Norris, however, had a different theory in terms of what happened to him. The McLaren driver felt that he had already reached the limit of what the car could do in Q2, and hence, according to him, there wasn't much possibility for improvement. The 24-year-old said,

"It’s always tough to say, but I’m pretty happy with third, honestly. I feel like I got to the limit of the car quite quickly, which made us look good. But I struggled to get a lot more out of it in the final two laps."

He added,

"Carlos and Max did good laps, especially Carlos has been very quick all weekend. I’m happy with third."

The P3 starting grid has been beneficial as often it has worked as the position best suited for coming out into the lead. Max Verstappen did so in 2023 and 2021 when he jumped from P3 to P1. Lando Norris will be aiming to do something similar as he tries to make the most of the McLaren package.