The 2025 Formula 1 season began in dream-like fashion for McLaren, with Lando Norris taking the win at the Australian Grand Prix and then settling for second behind teammate Oscar Piastri at the Chinese Grand Prix.
2026 has been something quite different for the team.
Piastri crashed on the reconnaissance at the Australian Grand Prix this year, and after suffering a mechanical fault on his MCL40 he could not start the Chinese Grand Prix, and he arrived in Suzuka for this weekend’s Japanese Grand Prix yet to turn a single lap in a Grand Prix this season. As for Norris, while he finished fifth in Melbourne, he too endured a failure prior to the beginning of the Chinese Grand Prix, and did not start the race.
As a result, the defending Constructors’ Champions currently sit third in the standings with 18 points, well off the pace set by both Mercedes and Ferrari.
Still, Norris sees the “potential” in this season’s challenger, despite the uneven start to the year.
“The car has a lot of potential,” said Norris during the FIA Press Conference ahead of the Japanese Grand Prix on Thursday.
“We’re certainly not where we wanted to be, but I think … the real question you probably ask is would I rather be here and have won last year, or would I rather have a slightly better car now and not have won last year, and I think you know what my answer would be.
“So, you can’t have the best of everything.”
The defending Drivers’ Champion then turned to the gap between McLaren and the two teams at the front.
“As a team we certainly are not where we want to be and where we desire to be, but I think we all know within the team what we can achieve. And now is just as good a time as ever to prove exactly what we can do as a team – against Ferrari, against Mercedes, who are performing very well at the minute. But I know all the boys and the girls back in the factory are working very hard and there’s good progress happening. It takes time to improve on some things and it’s not like we’re bad.
“We’re still third-best team at the minute, but we certainly enjoy being first a lot more than third. So, time will tell. We’ve got some things in the pipeline and like I said everyone’s working hard, so we’re ambitious to get back to the top.”
Norris outlined that the team, alongside Mercedes High Performance Powertrains (HPP), has uncovered what went wrong in Shanghai.
“Alongside HPP, I think it took a little bit of time to figure things out, but yes,” said Norris on Thursday when asked if the team has identified the issues from China. “Of course it hurt us as a team, certainly didn’t make us look good to have two cars not starting a race. I think what hurt more is the fact it was out of our control.
“But with HPP we’ve worked hard to figure things out, to understand how it happened, why it happened, and of course we’ll do everything we can to make sure it doesn’t happen again. But you live and you learn. It was a tough one for all of us. None of us want to have a weekend like that, and especially start a Sunday like that. So yeah, it hurt a lot, but I think at the same time it’s a good time for us to learn and step back and move on to this weekend.”
While McLaren may sit third in the standings at the moment, there is precedent for a late-season charge. The team began the 2023 season mired at the back of the grid — with Norris telling me ahead of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix they were just fighting for points — and rose up the standings over the back half of the season to finish fifth in the Constructors’ Championship. Then in 2024 they were third behind Red Bull and Ferrari for the first third of the season, before overtaking both to win a title down the stretch.
That gives Norris hope that another charge is in front of them, starting with some podiums.
“I can’t remember how many points we were behind in 2024 from Mercedes and Red Bull, Ferrari, but I think we were over 150 points or something behind and we still managed to come back and win the Constructors’. I don’t know how far we are behind now, it’s already quite a bit, but I think we’re not necessarily thinking of that just yet,” began Norris.
“I think what we are thinking of is getting on the podium first of all, and then just returning to winning races. The points then take care of themselves and we’ll see what we can claw back.
“But we’re confident in that. I want to say I think we’re confident as a team and we believe in ourselves that we’ve won the last two championships and we won the Drivers’ last year because we could build the best car on the grid, and I’m confident we can get back to doing that this year. It just takes time. You have to be patient. But yes, I have a good belief in the team and I think we can have the best car this year.”
Perhaps that patience begins paying off this week for McLaren.
