F1 Las Vegas Grand Prix LIVE: Oscar Piastri on back foot as teammate claims pole for crucial race

Speaking from the pit wall, McLaren CEO Zak Brown admitted that his drivers just didn’t have the “race-winning pace” to compete with the drivers at the front.

“Not the greatest start unfortunately,” Brown said from the pit wall to the Sky Sports commentators.

“I think Lando’s got similar pace to Max and George, but doesn’t appear to be quicker.

“So, we’ll have to see what long runs look like on the hard tyres, and same thing with Oscar.

“I think we’ve got a couple of cars to pit in front of us, so let’s see.

Zak Brown and his drivers.  Formula 1 via Getty Images

“But it’s a difficult race, I’m not sure we’ve got race-winning pace.”

Asked about the start of the race, Brown admitted that Norris “cooked it a bit” and went wide to let Max Verstappen take the lead.

“Max got a little bit better jump, and Lando went to protect and just cooked it a little bit,” he added.

“But good to see he wasn’t going to make it easy.”: