Norris Backs McLaren Structure As Key Weapon For F1 Season Run-In

World champion targets sustained fight with Mercedes and Ferrari as upgraded MCL40 heads to Zandvoort

Lando Norris believes the organisation around him at McLaren is the “biggest factor” in his confidence that he can continue to fight established heavyweights Mercedes and Ferrari during the remainder of the Formula 1 season, as the campaign resumes this weekend at the Dutch Grand Prix in Zandvoort.

The defending world champion arrives in the Netherlands on the back of victory at the Hungaroring, a result that underlined the progress made by McLaren after a difficult opening phase that included a double DNS for the team at Round 2 in China.

From early setbacks to genuine contenders

McLaren’s year began with reliability and operational frustrations, but recent rounds have shown a markedly more competitive package. The turning point, from Norris’s perspective, has been a combination of car development and organisational stability rather than a single breakthrough moment.

The win in Hungary, achieved with an upgraded MCL40 featuring a new floor, is a concrete indication that McLaren can translate development work into race-winning performance. That matters in a championship structured around continuous in-season evolution under the technical and cost-cap framework overseen by the FIA, where teams must decide how aggressively to upgrade while managing limited resources.

Yet Norris is clear that one victory does not automatically make McLaren favourites at every venue.

“I’m never the guy who gets too far ahead of myself, so I’m not going to come in here thinking that we should just win the race again,” he said during Thursday’s media day at the Dutch Grand Prix.

“But our goals are set high, so we want to believe we can. I think, with the new parts we had, with the new floor we had in Budapest, we just need to understand if it’s just brought performance everywhere, every track, every type of surface, all types of corners, whether it was more specific to there.”

Upgrades under scrutiny as Zandvoort test looms

Hungary offered a strong first read on McLaren’s latest upgrade phase, but Norris and the team are still cautious about how transferable that form will be as the calendar moves to different circuit profiles and climatic conditions.

“So, I think we’re still patient with understanding how much performance that really brought us. But it was clear we took a step forward and that’s a good sign. We still want to believe we can be very competitive here,” Norris said.

The Dutch Grand Prix presents a compact, technical lap with high banking and a mix of medium-speed and fast sections. While there are parallels with Budapest in terms of lap length and emphasis on downforce, Zandvoort’s exposed coastal location means the car has to cope with stronger winds and, this weekend, noticeably cooler temperatures.

“In some ways it’s not too different [here] to Budapest, but it’s also different in different ways: with the wind conditions, obviously much colder, so we have to just wait and see,” Norris noted. “I think it was clear what the weaknesses are of the car, what was better with the car, but the performance we had on Sunday especially, was probably almost a better performance than we had at any point last year.

“So I think it still shows that we can kind of ebb and flow, and still be a little bit more inconsistent than we were at times last season.

“We’re still trying to understand everything perfectly with the car. But it’s a track that I’ve enjoyed, I’ve always liked, and we performed well here as a team in the past. I’m hoping this weekend is the same again.”

Why Norris believes McLaren’s structure is decisive

Beyond the technical gains, Norris repeatedly brings the conversation back to the people and leadership inside McLaren when asked why he believes the team can sustain a fight at the front in the second half of the year.

Despite acknowledging that the engineers are still building a complete picture of the MCL40’s behaviour, he is emphatic about the foundations around him.

“What are the factors? McLaren is the team I’m with. That’s the biggest factor,” he said. “The people we have, what we’ve achieved over the last few years and the leadership we have within the team, from, I guess, part of it from myself, but also from Andrea [Stella], from Zak [Brown], the team leaders within McLaren.”

That leadership group has been central to reshaping McLaren’s technical structure and development direction over recent seasons, a process that has turned the team from midfield regulars into race winners. For Norris, that stability is as important as any single design upgrade when it comes to taking on rival manufacturers over a long campaign.

“Just everyone’s in a very, very good mindset at the minute, and in the mindset you need and you have to have to fight against the best in the world, in terms of all the teams and drivers, and to fight for World Championships.

“So, my team give me plenty of reassurance. And also, if I drive as well as I did in Budapest, and I have done for a lot of this season, then I’m very confident in myself too.”

Significance for the championship battle

Norris’s stance matters not only for McLaren’s internal narrative but also for the competitive shape of the season. A McLaren consistently capable of challenging Mercedes and Ferrari adds another layer of complexity to strategy calls, upgrade races and points distribution at the sharp end of the grid.

With the second half of the calendar now under way, the combination of a more competitive MCL40, an in-form reigning world champion and a leadership group that Norris publicly backs gives McLaren a credible platform to influence both the drivers’ and constructors’ battles week in, week out.

Whether the step made in Budapest can be replicated at Zandvoort and beyond will depend on how well McLaren reads differing track characteristics, tyre behaviour and weather conditions. But in Norris’s assessment, the key advantage is already in place: a structure and mindset inside McLaren that he trusts to keep them in the fight against Formula 1’s traditional powerhouses.