Norris claims he is a better driver in 2026 than during his title-winning season

Lando Norris believes he is a more complete Formula 1 driver in 2026 than he was during his title-winning 2025 season, even as he trails championship leader Kimi Antonelli by 83 points with McLaren still recovering from a slow start to the new regulations era.

The reigning world champion has taken pole position and victory at each of the last two rounds — Hungary and Zandvoort — to revive a difficult title defence. Yet despite the points deficit leaving him fourth in the standings, Norris insists his personal performance levels have risen above anything he produced last year.

“I was driving at a high level the second half of last year,” Norris said. “It’s tough to say [if I’m driving at my highest level], but I do think it’s a trickier car to drive this year in some ways. I think you can see that because the gaps between team-mates are often bigger this year than it was last year. But I do believe so.”

Norris pointed to improvements not just behind the wheel but in the technical work he puts in away from the circuit with his McLaren engineers. He cited the turnaround between the Zandvoort sprint race — where he slipped to third and described himself as “pretty disappointed” — and Sunday’s grand prix as a concrete example of that growth.

“It’s not just I’m driving better on track,” he said. “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. Yesterday to today is a perfect example of the work we put in overnight — it transformed our race and gave me the opportunity to win.”

Norris ranked his 13th grand prix victory highly, not for the result alone but for the process behind it. “Last night we worked very, very hard. I spent a lot of time with my engineers to understand what we could do better today — how to push more, save the tyres more, how to do everything in a better way than I’ve done and better than everyone else. And I certainly believe I did that.”

With McLaren still finding its footing under the 2026 technical regulations, Norris acknowledged the car remains a challenge to extract the maximum from, but framed that difficulty as part of what is sharpening him as a driver. Whether those improvements translate into a second consecutive championship remains to be seen, but consecutive wins have at least kept his hopes mathematically alive heading into the second half of the season.