Norris and McLaren 'don't have car' to fight for title despite Dutch GP win

Lando Norris says he and McLaren "don't have the car I need to fight for a championship", despite a second consecutive win to open the second half of the Formula 1 season.

The Briton's victory in the final Dutch Grand Prix at Zandvoort, following on from his first win of the season in Hungary last month, was of the highest calibre.

As such, it raises the prospect of the sort of championship fightback staged by Red Bull's Max Verstappen against Norris himself last year.

After this race last year, Norris' team-mate Oscar Piastri had a 34-point advantage over the Briton and 104 over Verstappen. Yet Verstappen, after one of the all-time great fightbacks, finished the season just two points behind Norris as he won the title in Abu Dhabi

Norris' masterful victory in Zandvoort has left him 83 points off the lead, held by Mercedes' Kimi Antonelli, who he and McLaren passed on track after losing the lead at the chaotic start of the day.

Antonelli's team-mate George Russell is tied on points with Ferrari's Lewis Hamilton, 59 behind the Italian.

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But while McLaren have made a major step forward with upgrades to their car that led to convincing wins in both Hungary and now the Netherlands, Norris believes that the car still has too many flaws to mount the sort of consistent attack Verstappen produced last year.

"I'm confident because we clearly have a strong car," he said. "We have a strong car in certain areas. It's not like last year where we were pretty good everywhere.

"We're very, very strong in high speed, and that's the place we've improved the car the most, is high-speed performance. No one matches us in high speed, and that's a good thing.

"My pace advantage to Mercedes in Turn Seven, Eight was crazy, but their advantage that they have to us in slow speed is also crazy.

"And therefore, I don't have the confidence to say, 'Yeah, I can easily fight for a championship for the rest of the season.'

"I know I've just won two races in a row and had two poles in a row, but at the minute I don't have the car I need to fight for a championship. And I know that's quite a big comment."

Norris' belief is based on his understanding that McLaren's slow-speed performance will be a handicap at the next race in Monza, and two races after that in Azerbaijan.

Both tracks are dominated by long straights, which penalise the McLaren's high drag compared to Mercedes, and have very few high-speed corners where the car's strength can compensate for its weaknesses in slow turns.

McLaren team principal Andrea Stella said: “If we can confirm our improvements in Monza, then we can look with some optimism at the remainder of the season.”

Norris' victory in Zandvoort, built around an off-set strategy and devastating pace once the cars were on the hard tyres in the second stint, underlined the level at which he is now operating.

As impressive as Verstappen's revival was last year, Norris' own in the second half of the season was almost as good, as both made up ground on Piastri.

And Norris believes he has built on the progress he made in his driving after a difficult start to 2025 to perform on an even higher plane in 2026.

"I was driving at a high level the second half of last year," he said. "It's tough to say, but I do think it's a trickier car to drive this year in some ways. And I think you can see that because the gaps between team-mates are often bigger this year, I would say, than it was last year.

"I do believe I'm able to understand situations better, to understand the car in a better way. It's still just horrible to drive, but I'm doing a better job at just understanding this, relaying this to my team, figuring stuff out.

"So, it's not just I'm driving better on track. I'm certainly eliminating my weaknesses on track, and I don't have so many, but it's also how I work off the track. And for me, yesterday to today is a perfect example of the work we put in overnight transformed our race and gave me the opportunity to win."

Team principal Andrea Stella said he believed Norris was driving better than ever.

"Lando is driving and operating at a very high level," Stella said. "He's driving at the level of a world champion.

"What I like the most of his journey in Formula 1 is that he keeps improving.