What’s happened to McLaren’s single lap pace advantage?

McLaren struggled for pace over a single lap during Friday practice at the Mexico City Grand Prix.

Lando Norris ended up fourth-fastest and was 0.251 seconds off the pace set by Red Bull’s Max Verstappen, with Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc and Mercedes’ Kimi Antonelli also getting inbetween the title rivals.

Championship leader Oscar Piastri endured a difficult day at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez as he lagged behind both Norris and Verstappen and could only finish 12th fastest, 0.840s adrift.

Both McLaren drivers were left concerned about their competitiveness over the short runs, which has been an unusual trend of recent races.

McLaren have not claimed a pole position or victory since the Dutch Grand Prix at the end of August - five races ago.

“I think we’re in a reasonable place for sure,” Norris said after second practice on Friday.

“I feel like I got up to speed quickly, I was quite surprised that my first lap was pretty good and my second lap was a good step. But the limit, I found it quite quickly, which was just holding us back a little bit.

“Not that it was a bad day but normally we are very good on a Friday and then everyone catches up on Saturday. We are already a little bit behind, so we have definitely some work to do tonight.”

Specifically addressing his troubles over a single lap, Norris added: “The balance of the car is just a bit all over the place. Same as the last few weeks. Single lap stuff we’re struggling at the minute.

“We’re working hard and trying everything we can. So we will see what we can do and what we can find.”

Piastri admitted his qualifying simulation lap was “pretty average” but remains confident McLaren can catch Red Bull over the remainder of the weekend.

"I think so,” he replied when asked that very question. “It’s going to be tight, like always, but I think we have a good car underneath us.”

On the race simulations later in FP2, McLaren were quick as they opted to run soft tyres unlike their main rivals who completed their long runs on mediums.

Norris’s high-fuel pace caught the eye of Ferrari, who noted the Briton looked “very fast” in a team radio exchange between Leclerc and his race engineer Bryan Bozzi.

That will give McLaren some encouragement heading into the rest of the weekend, but maximising their qualifying performance will be key. 

McLaren and Red Bull’s contrasting issues

Intriguingly, Red Bull had the opposite problem to McLaren, with Verstappen declaring Red Bull’s race pace as being a “big concern”.

After topping Friday’s second practice session, four-time world champion Verstappen admitted he is not confident in the RB21’s race pace in Mexico City.

“With the short run, I think on the soft [tyre compound] we managed to do a good lap,” he said. “The rest, everything else was pretty bad.

“On the medium, the short run was not great. And the big problem is the long runs where we seem to struggle a lot. So that is of course the big concern for the race.

“The balance wasn’t even off, there was just no grip, which is the bigger concern. As soon as you go on a sustained run, the tyres are going hot and we were nowhere. So that’s a tough one, I think, to sort out as well. But, we’ll see.”

Verstappen insisted Red Bull need to make improvements if he is going to have any chance of scoring a sixth win in Mexico.

“You’re not going to win the race like that,” he added. “You can be fast over one lap, but if you have absolutely zero pace in the race, then it’s going to be very tough.

“So I’d prefer to be fast in the races and not so fast over a one lap.”