Lando Norris may have finished second fastest in Thursday night’s practice, almost two seconds up on title rival Max Verstappen, but he’s worried about McLaren’s long-run pace after suffering front graining.

Norris was the only non-Mercedes driver to take the fight to Lewis Hamilton in Thursday’s practice sessions where he was third in the opening hour and P2 later that night.

Lando Norris worried about ‘shocking’ long-run pace

Although he was nearly a full second down on the seven-time World Champion in FP1, he closed the gap to a mere 0.011s in the late-night session.

Perhaps more importantly he was 1.998s faster than Verstappen who he has to outscore by three points on Saturday night to keep the title fight alive through to Qatar.

Red Bull are also potentially in trouble after motorsport advisor Helmut Marko admitted they brought the wrong spec wing to Nevada, reports suggesting they are losing north of half a second on the straights.

But there’s no cause for celebrations in the McLaren camp as Norris revealed he has problems of his own, the main one being front graining.

“The low fuel stuff has been okay,” he told F1 TV. “The high fuel, that was shocking. So, yeah, plenty of things to look into.

“These kind of combinations of things, and what we struggle with, the front graining and stuff, I’m just not very good at it, so it’s always a bit of a struggle for me.

“But yeah, a good amount of time to work on it. Two halves really, good low fuel and difficult high fuel.”

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Norris needs tackle the fine margins in Friday evening’s final practice, the Briton acknowledging he can spend that hour working on long-run pace if McLaren are on top of qualifying.

That ‘if’, of course, easier said than done.

Asked about those fine margins, he replied: “I mean if I knew it, I’d probably do it.

“But even if I know, it’s still not an easy thing for me to go and do, because it’s a struggle for me always. So I look into it and see what I work on.

“At least I can focus more on the high fuel than low fuel for now, but qualifying well and qualifying at the front will always help everything else. So yeah, plenty of things to look into.”

“It’s just very difficult, super low grip. I feel like I could drive a road car quicker than we drive at the minute.”

Norris trails Verstappen by 62 points with McLaren 36 up on Ferrari in the Constructors’ Championship.

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