AUSTIN – Zak Brown was the center of attention at the United States Grand Prix on Friday. During Friday’s FIA press conference, Brown sat alongside fellow team principals Laurent Mekies of Visa Cash App RB F1 Team and Oliver Oakes of Alpine, but almost every question went to the McLaren CEO. The reason? The Woking-based company has stormed to the top of the Formula 1 Constructors’ Championship, and with Lando Norris closing in on Max Verstappen at the top of the Drivers’ Championship, the media was looking for answers from the McLaren boss on how the team would break up the season.

Hours later, as Brown walked back into McLaren’s hospitality area after sprint qualifying, he was the one asking questions.

McLaren endured a difficult sprint qualifying on Friday, with Oscar Piastri eliminated in SQ1 after a lap time was canceled for exceeding track limits. That left only Norris in the fight, and he drove a lap that was ultimately only good enough for P4, a lap he described as “shocking” when speaking to the official F1 channel.

“Not very good, I’m P4. Not a great day, to be honest I struggled with the balance and the setup all day,” said Norris after qualifying. “In a way I’m happy with P4 because I feel like it could have been a lot worse, but my lap was shocking. So yeah, not a terrible day, it could have been worse, could have been better, but I’ll take it.”

Norris wasn’t too optimistic that he could fight his way forward in Saturday’s F1 sprint race.

“I hope to move forward, that’s my plan, but as far as speed goes, I think we’re where we should be today, so my plan is to move forward, but I have no idea how much we can.”

As for Piastri, he had to rue a mistake in the final sector that ended his day earlier than expected.

“Most of the lap was good,” Piastri said after the session. “I made a few mistakes in the last sector and of course in the second to last corner I just tried to go a little too fast and that’s the result.” It’s a shame, but the good thing about the sprint weekends is that we still have it tomorrow have a chance.”

When asked about the MCL38, Piastri replied that in his opinion there was no problem with the car, but that McLaren’s rivals may have taken a step forward.

“It feels okay, maybe not quite as strong as in the last few races,” said Piastri. “But I don’t think it’s because we’re weaker, I think the others maybe seem a little bit stronger.”

Team boss Andrea Stella admitted in his comments after the session that McLaren had not had the “smoothest day”.

We didn’t have the smoothest day. Oscar had a round canceled and was eliminated from SQ1 as a result. We were able to easily get to the SQ3 on Lando’s side of the garage,” said Stella. “He seemed to be on track to set a very competitive lap, but a few problems in the final sector pushed him back to P4. It’s still a good position to score points and we’ve also gathered good information that will allow us to get a little bit more out of the car while also learning more about the updates we’ve brought here to Austin .”

McLaren, along with several other teams, brought several updates to Austin. However, Norris did not point out the improvements in his comments to the media. “It’s not a new package, it’s broadly the same,” said the McLaren driver.

He also seems to have more questions than answers at the moment.