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After Friday’s practice at the Mexico City Grand Prix, McLaren were “already a little behind,” according to Lando Norris.

After a successful run of races for the Dutchman, Norris and team-mate Oscar Piastri are under pressure from Max Verstappen, who is four-time champion, at Friday practice at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez.

Verstappen set the tone, leading Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc by 0.153 seconds, 40 points clear of championship leader Piastri after a three-win stretch and a second place overall.

Piastri, who was 14 points ahead of the Briton, was in 12th place, while Norris was fourth fastest.

While handing his car over to a rookie, Norris, one of nine drivers, said, “We’re in a reasonable place, for sure.

I was surprised by how quickly I was up to speed. The limit is just a little bit slow for us because I found it quickly but quite quickly.

“Not that it was a bad day, but everyone catches up on Saturday after we’re good on Friday,” he said.

We have definitely some work to do tonight because we are already a little bit behind. Similar to the last few weeks, the balance is slightly off. Single-lap stuff is currently causing us some trouble.

Verstappen was disappointed with his day, saying he was struggling for pace on the race-simulation runs later in the session despite being the quickest overall.

Verstappen, who has a new floor installed on his Red Bull as the team chases every last bit of performance, said, “The short run on the soft (tyre) we managed to do a good lap. The rest was awful, as was everything else.

The short run was not great on the medium tire, and the long run, which appeared to be a major issue, was it. The race is very concerned about that.

The balance was not even off. Simply put, there was no grip. That is more important. We were nowhere when the tires started to go into a sustainable run, so that’s a difficult one to resolve. We’ll see.

Verstappen retorted, “Yes, but you are not going to win the race like that,” when it was pointed out that his consolation was that qualifying should be done at single-lap.

Despite Norris’ concerns about McLaren’s one-lap speed, the spectators were impressed by his long run.

Comparisons were challenging because Leclerc’s engineer Bryan Bozzi claimed over team radio that Norris looked “very fast” on the long run, which McLaren did on the soft tyre, rather than the medium used by the other front-runners.

And fourth-placed Mercedes driver George Russell said: “Lando looked very quick on his long run, which has obviously been the theme. However, qualification is crucial. The top eight cars will compete for position.

Piastri explained his 12th place overall position by stating that his “lap on the soft on low fuel was pretty average, so I’m not surprised by the lap time,” which has been a difficult run of races since winning in Zandvoort at the end of August.

But when asked if McLaren could compete with Red Bull in Mexico, he responded, “Yes, I think so. Although it will be tight, we will have a good vehicle underneath us, in my opinion.

Lewis Hamilton of Ferrari paced second fastest, ahead of Russell, Yuki Tsunoda, and Fernando Alonso’s Aston Martin. The top 10 were made up of Lance Stroll and Williams driver Carlos Sainz.

No significant incidents occurred, but Williams driver Alex Albon came in 19th overall after crashing into the wall at the end of the final corner of his qualifying simulation lap to finish.

Arvid Lindblad, a rookie driver for Red Bull, led the first session by 0.093 seconds and finished two places ahead of Tsunoda.

West Ham’s miserable Premier League campaign was continued by their humiliating defeat at Leeds on Friday, which made for their worst season in 52 years.

Nuno Espirito Santo, who has lost three games since Graham Potter took over in September, led to their third consecutive defeat.

Ironically, the Hammers, who are 19th in the table, won just one game this year against Nottingham Forest when Nuno was in charge.

West Ham’s joint-worst league season is currently only four points away, which the team did in 1932-33 and 1973-74, when they finished bottom.

Nuno, who scored a point in his first game against Everton, is finding it difficult to come up with an answer after being given the task of keeping West Ham safe from a relegation that would leave them outside the top flight for the first time since 2011-12.

“Unfortunately, our club has a lot of issues. We can’t afford to hide behind the problems. The Portuguese argued that everyone must be alive, do much more, and be in the right place.

I felt like we needed a striker to hold the ball because we weren’t in our defensive situations, so maybe that’s not what I’m best at.

In the Premier League, these kinds of errors are unacceptable.

There is quality, there is time, but nothing will happen if we don’t change, Nuno, who is also the first West Ham manager to fail to win any of his first four Premier League games since Manuel Pellegrini in September 2018, said.

“We must change our mindset, change our approach to dealing with situations, change our commitments, improve our preparation, and work harder.

The Hammers biggest issue is at the other end of the pitch, where only Nottingham Forest and Wolves, two other teams in the bottom three, have scored less goals this term.

This season, the London club has conceded 20 goals, four more than bottom-placed Wolves.

The most conceded in that manner in the competition’s history at this point is that nine of those came from corners, which is triple the amount of any other team (Aston Villa, Fulham, and Leeds are all on three).

With Ollie Scarles and Aaron Wan-Bissaka starting on opposite sides of their preferred full-back positions, it was obvious that Nuno’s tactical approach was flawed. In addition, former West Ham and England goalkeeper Rob Green questioned Nuno’s decision to start them on the opposite sides of their favoured full-back positions.

According to Green, “It was a repeat form from Monday night [a loss to Brentford], a shape we didn’t understand, full-backs on the wrong side, and it didn’t work on Monday,” the statement read in Green’s statement to Sky Sports.

I don’t understand how you can replace five things with better XI and shape than you did when you first started out. Nothing about it makes sense.

On Friday night, West Ham collectively covered less than Leeds and a total of just over 6 km.

Their response to conceding two goals in 15 minutes was even more alarming.

The visitors appeared worn out as the confidence of Leeds increased, and they only recovered by too late to earn a point.

West Ham’s captain Jarrod Bowen told Sky Sports, “A dressing room when you’re second bottom of the league is low.”

“We can only show some fighting if we step up and show some.” More of that is required. It’s nearly easy to hide and be afraid. Sometimes it’s easier to say it and sometimes harder to do it.

“Dip your sleeves up and in,” you say. Nobody will give us this. We must accept that the reality of our situation is real. You must accept that our situation is serious and that we are currently at risk.