Winner of the last two Grands Prix, Lando Norris believes he has further improved since his world title. Despite being 83 points behind, the McLaren driver believes in the comeback.
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Is Lando Norris even better than when he became world champion? The Brit is convinced. After a start to the season that placed him in the role of hunter against Kimi Antonelli, the McLaren driver seems to have regained a momentum that could completely revive the fight for the title.
Winner successively in Hungary and then the Netherlands, Norris has also just extended his contract with McLaren until at least 2030. He is still 83 points behind Antonelli, but the recent progress of the MCL40 allows him to regain serious ambitions.
Antonelli himself has acknowledged that Mercedes probably no longer has the fastest car. A status that would now belong to McLaren, at a time when Norris believes he is reaching the best level of his career.
Norris better than in 2025?
His first world title season was not a smooth ride. During the first half of 2025, Norris was particularly critical of his own performances.
Several mistakes in qualifying complicated his weekends, including his crash in Saudi Arabia. The Brit even publicly felt he was not performing well enough.
The situation completely changed during the second half of the season. Norris gradually found his rhythm, caught up with Oscar Piastri in the championship, then resisted the spectacular comeback of Max Verstappen to clinch his first title by only two points.
Despite the level shown during this period, Norris now considers he has reached a new level.
“I was already driving at a high level during the second half of last season. It’s hard to say, but I think the car is more difficult to drive this year in certain areas,” he explains.
A McLaren still “horrible to drive”
The recent performance of the MCL40 might suggest that McLaren now has an easy-to-drive car. Norris insists that this is absolutely not the case.
The world champion even believes the current car is sometimes more delicate than its predecessor.
“I think it shows because the gaps between teammates are often bigger this year than last year,” he observes.
That does not stop him from being convinced he has personally improved.
“I do believe I drive better than in 2025. I think I am better able to understand situations and better understand the car.”
Then Norris gives a much less flattering judgment on his car.
“It remains simply horrible to drive, but I do a better job understanding all that, passing this information to my team and finding solutions.”
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“I eliminate my weaknesses”
For Norris, his progress is not measured only by the stopwatch. The Brit considers he has improved all aspects of his work with McLaren.
“It’s not just that I drive better on track. I clearly eliminate my weaknesses at the wheel, and I don’t have many left, but there is also the way I work off the track.”
A particularly important evolution in a championship fight where the ability to optimize every weekend can make a huge difference.
Norris notably feels he better understands the reactions of his car and especially better communicates his feelings to engineers to find the right settings.
The Dutch Grand Prix is, according to him, one of the best examples.
The work done at Zandvoort changed everything
At Zandvoort, McLaren had not necessarily immediately found the ideal settings. But the work done between qualifying and the race allowed Norris to have a much more competitive car on Sunday.
“For me, what happened between Saturday and Sunday at the Dutch Grand Prix is a perfect example of how the work done overnight transformed our race and gave me the opportunity to win.”
The Brit therefore stresses the importance of the invisible work done with his engineers.
“The work we do off the track clearly represents a huge part of all this.”
This progress comes at the best time for Norris. After the upgrades brought by McLaren, the MCL40 now seems capable of regularly beating Mercedes, while the current world champion has just won two races in a row.
83 points to make up, but momentum reversed
The championship gap remains considerable. With 159 points against 242 for Antonelli, Norris still has to make up 83 points on the Mercedes driver.
But the recent momentum offers a very different scenario from the start of the season. Mercedes, which had won the first six races, has lost some of its advantage while McLaren is now considered by several drivers as the new benchmark.
Norris also knows better than anyone how quickly a championship can turn. In 2025, he himself saw Verstappen dangerously come back into the battle after several McLaren mistakes late in the season.
This time, it is he who must make the comeback.
And with a Norris who claims to drive better than in his title year while “eliminating his weaknesses,” Antonelli’s 83-point lead could become much less comfortable if McLaren’s recent dominance is confirmed.
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