'Competitive as the Ferraris and Red Bull' – Stella reflects on McLaren's US GP after missing out on podium

Andrea Stella believes that McLaren matched the performance of Ferrari and Red Bull during the United States Grand Prix, despite Lando Norris eventually slipping to fifth last weekend.

Norris and McLaren team mate Oscar Piastri struggled in Qualifying ahead of Sunday's race in Austin, the pair only able to achieve eighth and seventh on the grid respectively.

But the potential of the MCL40 briefly appeared for the Grand Prix, at least in the hands of Norris, who was able to run second in the closing stages, before eventually losing out to Max Verstappen's Red Bull, as well as the Ferraris of Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton.

"I think in the race we saw that what we said could have been the potential of the car was actually realised," said Team Principal Andrea Stella.

"Yesterday [in Qualifying], we thought that we had a faster car than we actually were able to realise on track. Lando said that the car could have been good for P2.

"I think that's a little bit of an exaggeration, because even if the potential was there, this year somehow is very difficult to use the full potential.

“It gets a little bit easier in the race, because you don't push as much as you do in Qualifying. You necessarily leave a little bit of margin, and the car was, I think, today as competitive as the Ferraris and Red Bull, while [Kimi] Antonelli seemed to be a step ahead of everyone else."

Norris was able to move up to second after switching to a one-stop strategy, with Leclerc, Verstappen and Hamilton utilising a two-stop, meaning they were able to hunt down and pass the reigning World Champion towards the end.

Norris believed it was the best result possible, while Piastri was only able to finish seventh having held off Mercedes' George Russell in the process.

"For the one-stop, this gives you the possibility to take advantage of a Safety Car, which didn't come,” said Stella.

"We are still waiting a compensation for what happened in Madrid! It will come, and we also attempted to see what's left in the hard tyres, but honestly, we knew that it was very, very unlikely that we could have kept Verstappen and, in particular, Leclerc behind.

"With Hamilton, we thought it was more dependent on the final tail of the hard tyres."

Since Norris' brace of victories in the summer, the Briton has struggled to come close to achieving similar results, having not finished on the podium in the last four Grands Prix.

Stella confirmed new upgrades would be coming in the next few weeks that would hopefully elevate McLaren back into the fight at the very front of the field.

"There will be some more stuff coming. I think ultimately we will only be able to do so across Brazil and Vegas. So Mexico, there won't be very much, but Brazil and Vegas, there will be some upgrades," said Stella.

"Hopefully, this will help us to, like I said before, be consistently in the fight for podiums and hopefully start to lean on the level of competitiveness that is required to fight for the victory, so there's a few upgrades that are still in the pipeline."