Lando Norris adopted a cautious tone but showed optimism regarding McLaren’s performance at the Miami GP, which marks the return of the 2026 Formula 1 season after a month-long break. The current champion believes in good battles for the team throughout the weekend.
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The Brit highlighted McLaren’s positive history at the circuit and stated that this could be a relevant factor, even with the season’s regulatory changes. He recalled his own achievements and those of Oscar Piastri on the track: “In a way, it doesn’t change that many things. It was obviously a track where we performed very well as a team, not just as drivers, in the last two years. Last year, it was one of our best tracks of the season in terms of pace compared to others.”
Regarding McLaren’s current form, Norris also compared their performance with other stages of the calendar and mentioned the Japanese GP, where the team had good pace and Piastri achieved his first podium of the year: “It’s a different track and it can still favor the car a bit more than other places. Japan certainly favored the car a bit more than the first races, but how that will change things, I don’t know. In a way, we have to wait and see.”
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The driver also commented that the Miami track layout could favor strategic battles, especially in battery usage along the straights and high and low-speed corners: “Many corners will still be high-speed in the first sector, and you’ll still have the middle sector with very low speed. And in a way, because of where the straights and corners are, we can still have good battles in terms of how to use the battery and save the battery. But if you use it frequently, you know the guy will pass you back on the next straight… It could be great, and I hope it is, you kind of have to wait and see.”
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