Norris highlights ‘crazy’ deficit to Mercedes in new McLaren request

Lando Norris has requested greater “focus” than ever before from McLaren to address his concerns over slow-speed pace with the MCL40.

According to Norris, challenging to retain his title in F1 2026 is not possible until this area is addressed. While Norris claims that no other car touches McLaren’s in high speed, he says that a “crazy” deficit exists to Mercedes in slow-speed performance.

Lando Norris sets clear McLaren requirement for title retention

Norris has emerged as a prominent title threat in the second-half of F1 2026. Following back-to-back wins at the Hungarian and Dutch GPs for Norris, the upgraded McLaren has seemingly replaced Mercedes as the benchmark at present.

Mercedes is preparing its response in the development battle, though according to team boss and co-owner Toto Wolff, Mercedes does not have the “money” to develop at the same rate as its rivals for the remainder of 2026. McLaren team boss Andrea Stella challenged that theory.

There is a gap of 83 points between Norris and championship leader Kimi Antonelli. It was proven by Max Verstappen last year that such a margin can be overturned with a strong part two of the season.

However, Norris says this MCL40 is not capable of making him a back-to-back champion. He has requested greater focus than ever before from his McLaren colleagues to fix the missing puzzle piece, which is slow speed.

Norris signed an extended McLaren contract following the Dutch Grand Prix, running through to the end of 2030, with an option to extend beyond that date.

Asked after the Dutch GP how confident he is heading into Monza, Norris said: “I’m confident because we clearly have a strong car. We have a strong car in certain areas. It’s not like last year where we were pretty good everywhere.

“We’re very, very strong in high speed, and that’s the place we’ve improved the car the most, is high-speed performance. No one matches us in high speed, and that’s a good thing. My pace advantage to Mercedes in Turn 7, 8 was crazy.

“But their advantage that they have to us in slow speed is also crazy.

“Therefore, I don’t have the confidence to say, ‘Yeah, I can easily fight for a championship for the rest of the season.’

“I know I’ve just won two races in a row and had two poles in a row, but at the minute I don’t have the car I need to fight for a championship.

“I know that’s quite a big comment, but I think last year I understood what is needed from a car and what was needed for myself. And I know the level that I am now and what I know I can perform at, and I know just what I need from the car. And I know what tracks we have coming up where we’re going to certainly struggle more, and I don’t want to struggle more.

“So I’m just doing my part to make sure, as a team, we don’t relax, we don’t get complacent in any way, and we work more than we’ve ever done before, even more than the last two years when we’ve won championships. I need the guys and girls to work and focus better than ever before to improve on these areas.

“If we can improve on these slow speeds, I’m confident that I can win every race this season. If we don’t, then it’s much more difficult to believe so.”

Norris was asked whether a targeted upgrade is needed to address this McLaren slow-speed deficit, or, whether his step up in performance between the Sprint and Grand Prix at Zandvoort provides hope that McLaren can work towards that breakthrough.

“A little bit. We still struggled in the final sector. It was still our weakest part of the track compared to them,” Norris responded. “So certainly, the slow speed is still our biggest weakness, especially just this tight, twisty stuff.

“The kind of more flowing corners, we’re not so bad at. There’s still some slow speed in Budapest, but the fact it’s a little bit more open and flowing, but still slow speed, things were better there. But as soon as it kind of gets proper tight and twisty, this is when the car doesn’t like it.

“So of course there’s a mixture of both. We have to understand what I can do behind the wheel to optimise things, what we can do with setup, short-term upgrades. We just had a lot of our big stuff, so we’re probably going to have to wait a little while for other things.

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“But there needs to be a bit of a focus, I believe, on more certain areas. I think a lot of our upgrades we brought lately have just – I mean, they’ve elevated the whole package in pretty much every single sense – but it’s clear where our weaknesses are and therefore we need to attack those things.

“Until we do that, it’s still going to be a very tough end of the season.”

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