Norris sure McLaren not yet close to car’s potential

Lando Norris says McLaren does not yet fully understand its 2026 car and has the potential to be far more competitive when it clicks, following his win in the Hungarian Grand Prix.

Budapest saw McLaren secure its first victory of the season – and Norris’ first as reigning world champion – with an impressive performance after introducing the first part of an upgrade package. While there are still more updates to come after the summer break, Norris says McLaren can also make big gains if it gets on top of how to extract the best from this generation of car.

“We still see good potential in the car, and we still believe we can turn things around from where we are now,” Norris said. “That’s something to look forward to, and that is a positive, but you don’t have all the time in the world in Formula 1 – time is your enemy! – so we need to try and bring those improvements as soon as we can.

"We don't feel like we have fully clicked with our understanding of this car just yet, but even before our latest upgrade package helped us to secure the win in Hungary, we had already secured some good results.

“We know from the past few years what it is like when you do understand the car and what happens when we can maximize the package. We don't feel like we have gotten close to that potential yet, so we are excited to really try and understand it completely, which is when we'll be able to maximize things.

“As has also been in the case in the past, we know when we’re not quite at the front we need to work together as drivers to help the team out develop our competition. Oscar [Piastri] and I often have very similar feedback and we’re working well with the aim of getting McLaren back into contention for wins every weekend.”

Norris says McLaren’s challenge is not just about the specific car performance, either, but also the new regulations and familiar aspects such as extracting the most out of the sensitive Pirelli tires.

“Every race, you learn different things. There have been plenty of learnings and areas where we can do a better job. You learn from every little thing that you do, and you always try and make yourself a bit better every day.

“The tires have changed, and their characteristics, and that means there’s certain things that are different. You can’t be as attacking as in previous years with the tires. Every car is different – there’s a lot of ways we have to drive this car very differently to last season, and it’s our job to go out and get the most out of these cars.

“Being halfway into the season, we now better understand these regulations and how to extract performance, as proven by the win in Hungary, but we’ve still got some work to do as a team.”