(Motorsport-Total.com) – McLaren is the team of the moment in Formula 1. Lando Norris won the last race before the summer break in Budapest and returned from the break four weeks later with another triumph in Zandvoort. If this strong form continues, the reigning world champion could still play a role in the 2026 championship fight.
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With his victory in the Netherlands, Norris overtook Charles Leclerc in the championship and is now fourth, “only” 83 points behind championship leader Kimi Antonelli. That still sounds like a lot, but Norris’s deficit was once even greater.
After Antonelli’s win in Spa, Norris was temporarily more than 100 points behind the Mercedes driver. McLaren team principal Andrea Stella, however, tempers expectations at Sky and emphasizes: “Before we can close this gap, we first have to have many such good race weekends.”
“That’s why I would rather focus on having good race weekends and developing further upgrades for the car at the moment. And if we have done that for a while and are capable of it, we will see where we stand in the championship.”
“But Antonelli is leading the championship completely deserved so far. Mercedes is leading the constructors’ championship completely deserved. We still have to do a bit more to be able to challenge them,” the team principal makes clear.
Norris himself sees it similarly, explaining: “If you want me to be confident, and if you want me to say: ‘Yes, I can still fight for the championship,’ then I need more than what I currently have.”
He is happy about his two recent Grand Prix wins, “but I know what is needed in a season. I know what kind of car I need. I know at what level I have to perform,” the 2025 world champion makes clear.
Where the McLaren still needs to get faster
“I feel that I am doing very good work. And the team is doing incredible work. But in a situation like this, you must never lean back. And we still have to improve in certain areas so that I can be confident for the rest of the season,” says Norris.
But exactly where does the MCL40 still need to get better? “When we introduced the Hungary upgrade, we knew that it would be especially useful on high-speed sections,” reveals Stella. But in Zandvoort, the extent “almost exceeded expectations.”
Zandvoort: Driver ratings by Marc Surer and the editorial team
However, the team principal explains that it is ultimately always a trade-off. Thus, the McLaren is now definitely competitive in fast sections, but still has weaknesses in slow ones. This in turn raises the question of why they were so strong on the “slow” Hungaroring.
Stella admits that he does not yet have all the answers to that, but explains: “I think that Hungary, which is often classified as a low-speed track, is actually more of a medium-speed track. Just in turn 2, speeds of more than 120 [km/h] are reached, just to give you an idea.”
“Turn 1 and the chicane as well as probably the penultimate turn are around 100 km/h, but the rest is well above 100,” says Stella. In addition, they found a very good setup in Hungary, he reveals, without wanting to name details.
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Stella: If we are also fast in Monza …
Either way, it is a good sign for McLaren to have recently won on two tracks that are not overly similar on paper. Now, however, Monza is coming up, a circuit that is very different from Budapest and Zandvoort due to its long straights.
The Italian Grand Prix could therefore become a key race for McLaren, as Stella reveals: “We know that drag is not necessarily a strength of our car.” In addition, there are “many braking phases in Monza, which is also not necessarily a strength of our car.”
“So there are a lot of things we still have to clarify ahead of the next race. But so far, in my opinion, we can confirm that we can fight for wins on tracks with high downforce and such a layout.”
Because the opposite is true at the upcoming Grand Prix in Italy and the least downforce is used on any other track, McLaren could go into the last races of the season “with some optimism,” according to Stella, “if we can confirm our progress in Monza.”
However, even then some questions would remain open. For example, Mercedes has planned a major update for the Bahrain Grand Prix in Sepang in October, which could give the Silver Arrows a decisive boost in the championship sprint – even if the McLaren is currently on par or even faster.
Norris sees a “race against time”
It is also currently uncertain how many races Norris has left to make up the 83-point deficit to Antonelli. Although there are currently eleven Grands Prix on the calendar, it is still uncertain whether the races in Qatar and Abu Dhabi will actually take place.
An alternative is a season finale in Imola, but in this case at least one race would be canceled without replacement. Accordingly, McLaren would have less time to catch Mercedes in the championship.
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Norris himself believes that McLaren would basically be ready for a title fight in 2026 as well. “The team is working better than ever. I think it is working more efficiently and harder than even in past years. And this level was the level with which the world championship was won,” he recalls at Sky.
“So it’s not that I don’t believe we can win,” he says, emphasizing: “I am confident that we already have much of what we need. There are just certain areas on the car that we need to improve. And I believe we can do that.”
“It’s simply, as always in Formula 1, a race against time,” Norris knows.
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