Lando Norris admits McLaren ‘a little bit off’ rivals in race trim

Lando Norris claims that McLaren is “a little bit off” the race pace of some rivals, and trying to compensate for that means higher tyre degradation.

McLaren is therefore hard at work on “every area” as it looks to unlock performance from the MCL40, Norris admitting that McLaren needs to “improve in most areas.” Among the top four, Mercedes and Ferrari came away from Bahrain testing looking particularly promising.

Lando Norris says McLaren lacking race pace edge

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McLaren comes into F1 2026 as the reigning double champions. The Constructors’ crown was retained in almighty fashion, while Norris saw off Red Bull’s Max Verstappen and McLaren teammate Oscar Piastri to become World Champion for the first time in 2025.

But, the landscape has been reset this season with new chassis and engine regulations. Barcelona and Bahrain testing suggests that the previous top four of McLaren, Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull is still the top four, but in what order, is not so certain.

Ferrari set the overall pace of Bahrain testing, but it was the Scuderia’s performance over a race simulation, and that of Mercedes, which alerted McLaren team principal Andrea Stella during the first of two tests in the nation.

Norris believes that the McLaren MCL40’s performance is not quite there yet, with race pace having been a key strength for the team last year.

Norris was asked whether any of the concepts which made McLaren’s last F1 machine a strong race car, are transferable into F1 2026, despite the major regulation changes.

“From what we see at the minute, no,” he replied to PlanetF1.com and others.

“I mean, last year we also had just a pace advantage. So going into the race, we could almost drive slower, things worked better, and then we could drive quicker.

“At the minute, we’re a little bit off. So to match the race pace of some of the others, we have to push a bit more, and then we have more degradation.

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“But I know there are some things that were our strengths last year that will continue to be our strengths this season.

“But, there’s still a lot of work just to get the balance in a good window. The car worked very well last year. Was difficult to understand, but worked well. And we’re still just very, very early days for this car at the minute, so we’ll be continuing to look into that.

“Of course, I would love that, because even when we had a bad qualy, we knew we would have a good Sunday, and that was always something to look forward to.

“So the team are working hard on every area, that includes race pace, tyre cooling, all of those things. But at the minute, we’ve kind of got to improve in most areas.”

The F1 2026 campaign begins in Melbourne. Free practice gets underway from 6 March.

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