Lando Norris finished the Sprint race of the Dutch GP in third position and once again pointed out an important limitation of McLaren. For the British driver, the lack of performance in low-speed corners prevents a consistent fight for the Formula 1 title in 2026.
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Norris stated that he was satisfied with the updates introduced by the team but highlighted that they did not solve the main deficiency of the car: “I just don’t have pace overall, especially in low-speed corners. We suffer a lot compared to others,” he said.
When asked about the possibility of making changes to improve performance thinking about the qualifying session for the GP, Norris was straightforward: “No, otherwise we would have already done that,” he said. When asked if he would accept sacrificing speed in one lap to gain performance in slow corners, he replied: “It’s not like we’re not doing that, you just make the car as fast as possible,” he added.
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Norris recalled that McLaren won the Hungarian GP, held on a circuit that also has slow corners, but explained that the characteristics of Zandvoort expose the car’s weakness even more. According to him, the team has evolved mainly in medium and high-speed corners, while still showing deficiencies in slower sections.
Therefore, the British driver considers that it will be necessary to find more performance so that McLaren can really fight for the championship this year: “This is how the car is at the moment. This is what we still need to focus on as a team. We need more if we want to fight for the championship,” Norris concluded.
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