Lando Norris has spoken of his desire to overcome the one-lap issues he has faced in this year’s Formula 1 season, something that he and McLaren are hoping to “tackle” for 2026.
The Briton has recently seen an upturn in form in his championship battle with team-mate Oscar Piastri, which appeared to be moribund after his DNF at Zandvoort in late August.
Since then, he, along with a rejuvenated Max Verstappen, has taken the fight to team-mate Piastri, and an impressive run, coupled with the Australian’s struggles, has now placed him back in the lead of the Drivers’ standings for the first time since Bahrain in April.
Despite sharing the same amount of pole positions as Piastri this year, Norris has felt that he is still unable to extract what he would like from the MCL39 in qualifying.
His blistering pole position lap, which preceded his dominant win in Mexic,o was perhaps an outlier, with Norris himself saying his pole in Monaco was the most standout.
“From focusing on myself and just knowing what I feel like I can do and what I can get out of the car, at times, I certainly still feel like I could do better last year and I could achieve more consistently good laps,” Norris told media including Motorsport Week.
“There were many laps I did last year where I came out and I felt pretty confident that no one could be that lap.
“I don’t really think I’ve achieved that this year, maybe once in Monaco, I would say, it was probably one of the best laps I’ve I’ve done.
“Otherwise, it’s very, very rare that I come in and I feel like no one can beat that.
“From my understanding, the team’s understanding, we’ll try and further tackle those things from what I struggled with at the start of the year and try improve them into next year’s car.”
Norris praises the ‘incredible job’ done by Piastri
Piastri’s drop in form has been cause for some head-scratching, perhaps most of all for Piastri himself, who has been unable to fully explain where he is losing out to Norris in a car in which the latter was previously struggling more.
But Norris was quick to acknowledge his team-mate and title rival, praising the spike in performance he has shown from 2024 to 2025, in which is just his third season of F1.
“But of course, I’m not taking away anything from the fact that Oscar has improved from last year,” he said.
“It’s his third season in F1 and he’s doing an incredible job. I’ll never take anything away from that fact.”
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