Even after dominating the Dutch GP and securing his second consecutive victory in the 2026 season, Lando Norris sees a weakness in the MCL40 that still worries him for the final stretch of Formula 1. The Briton has asked McLaren to focus their next development efforts on low-speed performance, while trying to make up the 83-point deficit to Kimi Antonelli.
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In Zandvoort, Norris won by more than 11 seconds over the Mercedes driver and reached the 13th victory of his career. The result reinforced his good form after a difficult start for McLaren, marked by reliability issues. Despite the dominance, the current world drivers’ champion highlighted that the car still loses performance in slow and twisty sections:
“A little,” Norris replied when asked if McLaren needs a targeted update to fix the remaining flaws of the MCL40. “We still struggle in the last sector. It was still our weakest part of the circuit compared to them. So, definitely, low speed is still our biggest weakness, especially in that slower and twistier section.”
“In the faster and smoother corners, we’re not that bad. There’s still low speed in Budapest, but the fact that it’s a bit more open and flowing, even though it’s low speed, things were better there. But as soon as it gets really slow and twisty, that’s when the car doesn’t like it. So, of course, there’s a mix of both. We have to understand what I can do on the wheel to optimize things, what we can do with adjustments, short-term updates.”
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McLaren has already introduced major updates this season, including changes in Budapest and others in Zandvoort. Therefore, Norris believes it will be necessary to wait for the next package. “We’ve just done many of our big updates, so we’ll probably have to wait a bit for other things,” said the British driver.
“There needs to be a certain focus, I believe, on more specific areas. I think many of the updates we’ve brought recently have raised the package as a whole in practically every way. But it’s clear where our weaknesses are and, therefore, we need to attack those things. And until we do that, it will still be a very difficult end of the season,” concluded the 2025 champion.
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