Why McLaren thinks Norris is even better now than his F1 title-winning year

Just over a month ago, it seemed pretty clear that McLaren was going to be unable to successfully defend the Formula 1 drivers’ title in 2026.

Coming into the Hungarian Grand Prix, Mercedes’ Kimi Antonelli led the standings with 204 points to his name, while the papaya drivers combined couldn’t even match that tally – Lando Norris was on 103, Oscar Piastri on 92.

However, McLaren introduced a substantial upgrade package at the Hungaroring, focusing on front and rear corner bodywork as well as introducing a floor and rear wing.

The consequence was immediate: Norris won from pole and repeated the feat in Zandvoort, courtesy of a round-the-outside move on challenger Antonelli in Turn 1. He is now ‘just’ 83 points adrift of the championship lead.

The straightforward conclusion would be that McLaren’s updates simply delivered, but team principal Andrea Stella is adamant that Norris is consistently extracting the most from the MCL40 – even hinting at the Briton outperforming his machinery.

“Lando is driving and operating at a very high level, in absolute sense, in relation to a Formula 1 world champion,” Stella commented following the Dutch Grand Prix. “He's driving at the level of a world champion.

Lando Norris, McLaren

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Formula 1 via Getty Images

“And like I always say for Lando, what I like the most of his journey in Formula 1 is that he keeps improving. And especially after the start of the 2025 season, something clicked, which is not only a single click, but is a way of working with Lando, for Lando, and that we are adopting also on Oscar's side now in particular. And this approach has led Lando to continuous improvements.

“So it's almost like I see Lando stronger and stronger race by race. Because this weekend was nowhere near a weekend in which we could fight for the victory for granted, especially after having seen the performance in the sprint.

“But we invested in trying to understand where was the opportunity from a tyre exploitation point of view, and car improvement. Actually, both drivers improved from this point of view, but unfortunately a question mark remains as to the behaviour of the second stint of Oscar.

“So there's overall a positive trajectory for both, but at the moment Lando is capable of maximising the performance in qualifying trim. If we think the start of 2025, this had become a bit of a concern that he overcame. And then, when you have conditions in which the car slides in the race, there's not much grip, he is the master in this kind of conditions.”

Qualifying performance indeed is a key point to look at.

Over the course of the 2025 season, the McLaren drivers were evenly matched on one lap, with their qualifying head-to-head (including sprint qualifying) a perfect 15-15 split.

As F1 switched to new machinery in 2026, Norris was down 3-1 going into the unexpected April break. But since then, the reigning champion has thrashed his team-mate 12-1, with Piastri quicker in Monaco only. The average gap between them is not huge – 0.128s – but it is consistently to Norris’ advantage, amid the Australian’s latest struggles.

Lando Norris' move on Kimi Antonelli

Photo by: Michael Potts / LAT Images via Getty Images

Yet, Stella reckons what really has been making the difference is Norris’ enhanced state of mind, leading to perfected racecraft.

“If you want to look at Lando from another angle, I would say that definitely he is now expressing a higher level of assertiveness as he drives,” the Italian pointed out. “You know, the manoeuvre to pass Antonelli today is a really good demonstration of that. He's demonstrating more self-confidence.

“This is interesting, and I quite like it – the self-confidence sometimes is not demonstrated by being the most aggressive. Sometimes you are self-confident when you think like, ‘You know what? I'm not going to have a fight now because I may lose in this fight. It's a very long race. See you at the end of the race.’

“It's this confidence in your means, in your strength, that I quite like. Which means that sometimes you are actually the one backing off when the situation becomes too risky.

“We need to remember that in the last couple of races that he won, he didn't defend the pole position. He was actually second at the end of the first lap. But I did not hear or perceive any decay in his confidence, as to the fact that he was fast and he was just preparing his opportunity to then cash in on his competitiveness. So I think assertiveness and confidence are probably the two characteristics that he has improved the most from a non-technical, non-operational point of view.”

Additional reporting by Ronald Vording and Filip Cleeren