F1 champion Lando Norris slammed his McLaren car as the hardest he has ever had to drive after a rough afternoon for the team at the Circuit of the Americas.

Heading into the second half of the season after new upgrades and a victory at the Hungarian Grand Prix, McLaren and Norris followed it up with another win in the Netherlands and looked like they were set to take the fight to Mercedes for the rest of the season.

However, things have been pretty underwhelming for them since then. Norris came home third and would have won in Spain but for an untimely VSC, but other than that, neither he nor team-mate Oscar Piastri have scored any other podiums, never mind victories.

Saturday's qualifying ahead of the US Grand Prix was another sobering reminder of just how far they are behind, with him and Piastri finishing the session in P8 and P7.

While Piastri was a considerable amount of time off pole sitter Antonelli (+0.768), Norris fared even worse, more than one second behind the Italian (+1.014), though he did have a lap time deleted for track limits in Q3.

Norris: MCL40 hardest I've had to drive

A downbeat Norris addressed the media in the paddock after the session and made it clear he had not performed to the level he had hoped.

"Not at all," Norris told Sky Sports when asked how much track limits had been an issue this weekend. "It's fine, just did a terrible job today so not very happy with myself."

Norris was then asked about his McLaren car, in response to which he made a pretty big statement.

"It's easily the hardest car I've ever driven in my life," Norris explained.

Despite that, when the driver can get the most out of it and it's predictable, he thinks there is speed there.

"It was still easily good enough for P2 today, so just disappointed really," he concluded.

Piastri shares similar view to Norris

Norris' team-mate expressed a similar view on the MCL40 after his own qualifying efforts also fell short of expectations.

Like Norris, Piastri says that there is pace there, but it is very difficult to extract it.

"It's been tough all weekend. [There’s] just not been any pace, so [it's] a bit of a head scratcher," the Aussie told the media.

“I mean, I think the car has the potential to be quick, but it's just incredibly difficult to drive. It has been a challenge from the first lap yesterday until now so [it’s] not a massive surprise to end up where we are.”

Despite McLaren's best efforts, they have been unable to get around their troubles so far.

“We've tried a lot of stuff, but nothing's really seemed to be the fix,” he added. “So, you know, we didn't really expect any of the changes we made to make a massive difference, but it's just been incredibly difficult to get lap time out of the car. So, yeah, just one of those weekends at the moment.”