Lando Norris has conceded it was “impossible” to string a lap together during practice at the Circuit of the Americas.
The reigning champion endured a challenging outing on Friday, particularly in FP2 when he could only log the seventh-fastest lap.
At one stage while running the soft compound, Norris oversteered into Turn 15 and was unable to complete the qualifying run, despite showing promise in the first sector.
It marked a difficult day at the office for Norris, who is hoping to uncover fixes overnight.
“[It was] just difficult, just impossible to put a lap together at the minute,” Norris said.
“There are signs of good pace at the minute, but to go into a qualifying now and be able to repeat that every lap and do it on demand is just too difficult.
“I'm sure it's the same for everyone. We just need to make some small tweaks to the car.”
However, Norris is taking confidence from the fact that the car was able to show promise on occasion around the lap.
“It's not like there's anything crazy,” he added. “It's tough, maybe our car, the handling is just a little bit on the difficult-to-achieve side.
“So maybe small things in a few directions can help us out. But the pace is there or thereabouts. We can still be optimistic.”
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