Lando Norris remains confident McLaren can end up with the best car in Formula 1 this year despite a slow start to the season.
The reigning champions have scored just 18 points from the first two races after both drivers failed to make the start at the last round in China and Oscar Piastri crashed on his way to the grid at the opening round in Australia.
On pure performance, McLaren appears to have the third fastest car behind Ferrari and Mercedes, but Norris has no doubt the team can return to the very front of the grid.
“We’re confident as a team and we believe in ourselves that we’ve won the last two championships and we won the drivers’ last year because we could build the best car on the grid, and I’m confident we can get back to doing that this year,” he said.
“It just takes time. You have to be patient. But yes, I have a good belief in the team and I think we can have the best car this year.” Norris drew a comparison with 2024 when McLaren made a slow start to the season but overhauled a 115 point deficit after the sixth round to emerge as the constructors’ championship by the end of the year.
“I can’t remember how many points we were behind in 2024 from Mercedes and Red Bull, Ferrari, but we still managed to come back and win the Constructors’,” he said. “I don’t know how far we are behind now, it’s already quite a bit, but I think we’re not necessarily thinking of that just yet.
“I think what we are thinking of is getting on the podium first of all, and then just returning to winning races. The points then take care of themselves and we’ll see what we can claw back. But we’re confident in that.”
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McLaren is currently 80 points behind the Mercedes works team, which uses the same power unit, but team principal Andrea Stella is confident there is a huge amount of potential to be unlocked in the coming races.
“The MCL40 is a very high potential platform,” he said. “At the moment our car, when we compare to Ferrari and Mercedes, it suffers a bit of a deficit in grip. So Ferrari and Mercedes are faster than us in the corners.
“I think compared to Mercedes GP we see that we are probably underexploiting the power unit a little bit. It was better in China compared to Australia, we are on a steep learning curve when it comes to getting the most out of the power unit, which is positive and we are working very well with HPP to make sure that we get on top of all the potential, extracting all the potential that is available in the power unit.
“But coming back on the chassis side, we understand exactly what to do in terms of putting in place the actions to improve the chassis furthermore. In fact it’s just about bringing up the upgrades that will increase the aerodynamic efficiency.
“This will happen in the next couple of events, so I think from there we should see a positive trajectory and we are confident that McLaren will be in condition to compete for podiums and victories on merit within this season.”
