Lando Norris: McLaren driver says champions won’t give up on F1 2026 title push despite early Mercedes points gap | F1 News

Lando Norris believes McLaren can still “push hard” to defend their world titles when the F1 season resumes from the Miami Grand Prix, despite Mercedes and Ferrari’s superior starts to the sport’s new era.

Reigning champion Norris did not record a podium finish in the first three races of his title defence, although team-mate Oscar Piastri finished second at the last race in Japan, and could have potentially won had it not been for the appearance of the Safety Car during an improved showing from McLaren ahead of F1’s enforced April break.

But with McLaren, like all teams, now having had what will be almost five weeks to work on their cars back at their factories ahead of the season’s resumption in a fortnight’s time, the world champion believes there is still plenty of opportunity to turn the situation around.

“I think we can have a good season, even if we’re not where we want to be right now,” said Norris, who trails Mercedes’ early championship leader Kimi Antonelli by 47 points.

“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.”

Norris, who finished fifth in Australia and Japan, said ensuring McLaren got to the bottom of the reliability issues that have hit their car and Mercedes power unit so far was a key area of focus.

“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 added.

“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.”

Piastri also expressed confidence in the reigning constructors’ champions ability to get into regular victory contention over the 19 races that remain.

“We have a lot of work to do to be back at the front consistently, but closing the gap to Mercedes and out-developing the field is something that’s within our control,” said the Australian driver.

“This team have proven how we’re able to turn things around, and we’re starting in a stronger position than we have in previous examples of this, such as 2024.

“I have complete trust that the team will do everything they can to get us there and I am genuinely excited to see what we can achieve.”

Formula 1 returns on May 1-3 with the Miami Grand Prix, the season’s second Sprint weekend, live on Sky Sports F1. Stream Sky Sports with NOW – no contract, cancel anytime