For much of the 2026 Formula 1 season, Lando Norris hasn’t been able to launch much of a defence of his Drivers’ title. McLaren have been a step behind frontrunners Mercedes and Ferrari, leaving them a distant third in the Constructors’ Championship.
The picture looked a little different at the Hungarian Grand Prix last month. McLaren introduced an upgrade package in Budapest, which helped Norris win his first race as a world champion by 15 seconds ahead of Red Bull’s Max Verstappen. Norris also became the first non-Mercedes driver to take pole for a Grand Prix in 2026.
McLaren seemed to be headed for a third consecutive one-two finish in Hungary before Norris’ teammate Oscar Piastri retired with a gearbox failure.
Norris entered the summer break sitting fifth in the Drivers’ standings with 128 points, 91 points back of Mercedes’ Kimi Antonelli for the championship lead. McLaren, meanwhile, sits 159 points behind Mercedes in the Constructors’ Championship.
McLaren team principal Andrea Stella believes McLaren and Norris still have a shot to defend their titles in 2026.
“If we can continue the season as we did in Budapest, we can still achieve a great deal,” Stella said during a McLaren Q&A. “To do so, we must keep pushing with the development of the MCL40 and ensure we outpace our rivals—who certainly aren’t standing still—in this race within the race, which is the competition over updates.”
McLaren has more upgrades planned once Formula 1 resumes after the summer break. In-season development played a significant role in McLaren’s resurgence in recent years.
“The result will depend on how effective the solutions we bring to the track prove to be,” Stella said. “In the first part of the season, we struggled more than we expected in this regard too, but I believe that in recent years, once we’ve gained some momentum, we’ve been able to maintain it.”
In 2023, McLaren sat sixth in the Constructors’ Championship with 17 points after eight rounds. They then introduced upgrades, which helped Norris and Piastri combine for nine podiums over the next 14 Grand Prix races.
In 2024, McLaren sat third in the Constructors’ Championship, 99 points behind Red Bull after the first five Grands Prix. They introduced an upgrade package in Miami, which helped Norris achieve his first win in Formula 1. Norris and Piastri combined for six wins over the rest of the season and McLaren won their first Constructors’ title in 26 years.
In 2026, however, McLaren has less time to launch a comeback, though there is still plenty of racing left to come.
“There are still 12 races left on the calendar, so there are plenty of opportunities given that 546 points are up for grabs,” Stella said.
With Norris 91 points behind Antonelli, he would need to outscore the Mercedes driver by at least eight point each weekend. Even if Norris were to win out for the rest of the season, including two sprint races, while Antonelli finishes second, Antonelli would still win the championship by five points.
“Of course, the gap in both championships is significant, but we remember last year’s lesson well: after all, I always tell the team that if we’ve set up a new display cabinet to house the new, recent trophies at the McLaren Technology Centre, then we have a duty to do our utmost to keep filling it.”
McLaren knows all too well how quickly things can change in Formula 1. After the Dutch Grand Prix, Piastri held a 34-point lead over Norris and a 104-point lead over Verstappen.
Verstappen won five of the following nine Grands Prix to finish the season, while Piastri only finished on the podium three times. Norris won the championship by two points ahead of Verstappen. Piastri, who led for the championship through 15 rounds, finished third.
On top of the gap in points, Norris also needs to overtake Lewis Hamilton, George Russell, and Charles Leclerc in the standings. Verstappen sits 19 points behind Norris in sixth, but finished on the podium in three of the final four races before the summer break.
A busy race at the front can help or hurt Norris in a comeback attempt by potentially putting more space between him and Antonelli. That only works, however, if he’s the driver in front.
While 12 Grands Prix is plenty of time for the standings to change, the gap is enough that Norris can hardly afford to cede any points to Antonelli for the remainder of the season. He also can’t cede points to the other drivers ahead of him.
McLaren will need a strong second half from Piastri. The Australian driver is seventh in the Drivers’ standings with 92 points.
He was on track for the win in Hungary after overtaking Norris on the opening lap. While trying to lap Williams driver Carlos Sainz after his second pit stop, Piastri and Sainz made contact, which allowed Norris to overcut his teammate.
Piastri struggled for pace compared to Norris. However, he was still on track to finish second before he was forced to retire.
Piastri’s DNF in Hungary was the latest in a series of reliability issues for McLaren in 2026. Both drivers did not start the Chinese Grand Prix due to reliability. Norris also had mechanical DNFs at the Canadian and Monaco Grand Prix.
Mercedes, who supplies McLaren power unit, has also faced reliability problems, with both Russell and Antonelli suffering mechanical DNFs in 2026.
“Over the past few months, we’ve had the opportunity to deepen our understanding of the new power unit supplied by Mercedes HPP and to work with our technical partners to work out how best to utilize it,” Stella said.
“It’s been a long process, with its ups and downs, but one that’s starting to bear fruit. That said, I expect that optimizing the power unit will remain a complex issue throughout the 2026 season.”
Reliability could factor into a second-half comeback for McLaren. Ferrari sits second in the Constructors’ with 307 points and outscored both Mercedes and McLaren in each of the final three weekends before the break.
Ferrari’s only mechanical DNF was a power-steering issue for Leclerc at the Barcelona-Catalunya Grand Prix.
The upgrades in Budapest were the result of a change of direction for McLaren after a frustrating start to the season for the reigning Constructors’ Champions.
“Paradoxically, the enforced break in April probably allowed us to focus entirely on analyzing the MCL40’s performance and to fully understand that we needed to redirect or strengthen its development in certain areas of the car,” Stella said.
“It is clear that the Budapest weekend, which brought the first half of the season to a close, was the highlight: not only because of the result, but above all because the aerodynamic package we introduced at the Hungaroring is the result of this change of direction in development and has enabled us to make significant progress in terms of competitiveness.”
Whether the pace shown by McLaren in Hungary is a sign of what’s to come in the second half of the season remains to be seen.
With such a large points gap in both the Drivers’ and Constructors’ standings, it’s a tall ask for Norris or McLaren to defend their titles, though they may be able to fight for wins more consistently in the second half of the season.
Formula 1 returns from the summer break on Aug. 23 with the Dutch Grand Prix.
