Bullish Lando Norris outlines McLaren’s F1 2026 title recovery plan

Lando Norris insists McLaren is not “giving up” on its world championship hopes despite a tough start to the 2026 Formula 1 season.

Reigning world champion Norris has not made the start to his F1 title defence he would have liked and trails early championship leader Kimi Antonelli by 47 points after Mercedes claimed the first three victories on offer in Australia, China and Japan.

McLaren has endured a difficult start and lagged behind rivals Mercedes and Ferrari at the season-opener in Melbourne, before neither Norris or team-mate Oscar Piastri were able to take the start in China due to a double reliability failure.

Things improved in Japan, where McLaren emerged as Mercedes’ nearest challengers, with Piastri taking second place behind Antonelli, and Norris finishing fifth behind the other Mercedes of George Russell.

"I think we can have a good season, even if we're not where we want to be right now," Norris said.

"And although we haven't started the season where we want to be, we still want to push hard for the championship, this isn't a case of giving up and focusing on next year - I'm not sure if that approach ever really works.

"There's plenty of examples where we've not quite been where we want to be at the start of the year, but have ended up in a much stronger position by the end - 2023, 2024 and so on, and we're a stronger team now than we were then.

"We've been there, done it, learned from it and I trust that this team knows how to do it again. Plenty of hard work ahead, but we're ready for it.”

McLaren sits third in the constructors' championship on 46 points, 44 behind second-placed Ferrari and 89 adrift of leaders Mercedes. 

Norris revealed McLaren is determined to utilise the unplanned five-week break between the Japanese Grand Prix and Miami Grand Prix to further improve its MCL40 challenger, as well as the optimisation of its Mercedes power unit.

"We're not in a terrible position, but we've definitely got to work to get back in contention for wins, and, even then, we need to keep going to make sure we've got a car capable of winning every single weekend," he explained.

"We've also had some issues that really haven't helped our development of these cars. One thing we realised very early is that time in the car, and getting laps on the board, is so important when it comes to learning how to get the most out of the car, and specifically the power unit.

"Tiny, tiny margins make significant differences. Combine that with the fact that we didn't start the Grand Prix in China, and that we didn't get enough track time during practice in Japan, and it's easy to see where we're lacking.

"However, we're using this gap between Japan and Miami to do what we can to fill that gap in our understanding. We're putting a lot of time in on the sim, and [we were] back behind the wheel for a tyre test at the Nurburgring. Despite that test being focused on tyres for next year, time behind the wheel is certainly never going to hurt."