Lando Norris’s victory at the Dutch Grand Prix reinforced, for Andrea Stella, the driver’s evolution in the 2026 Formula 1 season. The current world champion won in Zandvoort with more than 11 seconds advantage over Kimi Antonelli, the championship leader.
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“Lando is driving and operating at a very high level in an absolute sense, in relation to Formula 1… I believe he is driving at the level of a world champion,” said the team principal. “And, as I always say, Lando is rising, what I like most about his trajectory in Formula 1 is that he keeps improving.”
After a difficult start for McLaren with the new regulations, Norris scored 101 of his 159 points in the last six rounds and has become considered one of the season’s highlights, despite reliability issues.
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“Especially after the start of the 2025 season, something clicked, which is not just a one-time click, but a way of working with Lando, for Lando, and which we are also adopting on Oscar’s side, now in particular. I believe this approach has led Lando to continuous improvements,” said Stella. “So it’s almost like I see Lando [getting] stronger with each race, because I think Zandvoort was not even close to a weekend where we could take for granted that we would fight for the win, especially after seeing the performance in the sprint,” added the Italian.
McLaren worked overnight to understand the difficulties and find gains in tire management and car performance. Stella assessed that both drivers have evolved, but highlighted that there are still doubts about tire behavior in Oscar Piastri’s second stint: “So I think there is a positive trajectory for both overall, but at the moment Lando is able to maximize qualifying performance; if we think about the start of 2025, that had become a concern that he overcame. And then I think when you have conditions where the car slides in the race, there is little grip. So I think he is the master in this type of condition.”
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