Lando Norris has cast doubt on his own chances of winning the Formula 1 drivers’ title again this season, despite having won the last two races with McLaren. The Briton stated that the MCL40 still does not deliver the performance needed for a consistent championship fight.
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The current champion won the Hungarian GP before the August break and triumphed again at the Dutch GP in Zandvoort, a result that took him to fourth place in the championship with 159 points. Even so, Norris is 83 points behind Kimi Antonelli, the leader with 242, and 24 points behind George Russell and Lewis Hamilton, tied in second.
For Norris, McLaren’s main limitation is in low-speed corners. The car performs very strongly in high-speed sections but loses significant ground to Mercedes in slower parts, a difference that prevents the driver from considering the team ready for a title challenge.
“We have a strong car in certain areas. It’s not like last year when we were very good almost everywhere. We are very, very strong in high speed, and that is the area where we have improved the most. No one matches us in high speed, and that is a positive,” Norris said.
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The Briton highlighted, however, the contrast with Mercedes: “My pace advantage over Mercedes in corners 7 and 8 was absurd, but their advantage over us in low speed is also absurd. So, I don’t have the confidence to say I can easily fight for the championship until the end of the season,” he continued.
Norris acknowledged that the two consecutive wins and two poles in a row show McLaren’s strength but stressed that the car still needs to evolve: “At the moment, I don’t have the car I need to fight for the championship,” he said, adding that he knows the level of performance required to win and which tracks could further expose the current limitations.
Therefore, the British driver asked the team to stay focused and not get comfortable with recent results: “If we can improve in low speeds, I’m confident I can win all the races this season. If we can’t, it becomes much harder to believe that,” he concluded.
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