Key McLaren title-winning strength not present in 2026 F1 car

Reigning Formula 1 world champion Lando Norris admits the 2026 McLaren doesn’t yet have the race pace strength that helped carry him to the title last year.

McLaren emerged in the final year of the previous rules cycle with the best car on the grid, with it proving especially strong in managing rear tyre temperatures to improve degradation.

However, as pre-season testing has continued with the new-for-2026 cars, McLaren is yet to show any sign of being able to replicate this dominance.

Indeed, on Thursday at the second Bahrain test, Lando Norris admitted that the MCL40 needs to be pushed harder on long running to get closer to its rivals’ pace, which in turn is using up more tyre.

“From what we see at the minute, no,” he replied when asked if McLaren has been able to transfer its strong race pace from last year over to the new car.

“Yeah, 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.

“So not entirely, but I'm sure there are some things, I know there are some things that were our strengths last year that will continue to be our strengths this season.

“But you know, it's 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 it's 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 quality, we knew we'd 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, yeah, we just kind of got to improve in most areas.”

McLaren ended day two of the Bahrain test second, after Oscar Piastri took over from Norris in the afternoon.

Mercedes topped the first test outright and has been fastest on both days of the second Bahrain test.