Lando Norris has admitted McLaren lacks the car to fight for the podium or wins during the early stages of the 2026 Formula 1 season.

Norris qualified sixth on the grid behind McLaren team-mate Oscar Piastri but neither driver started the Chinese Grand Prix due to two separate electrical problems with their Mercedes engines.

McLaren discovered an issue with Norris’ car which prevented the Briton from even making the grid, before a differentl fault forced the team to dramatically withdraw Piastri minutes before the race.

It marked the first time Norris has missed a grand prix start in his F1 career, while Piastri is yet to complete a racing lap outside of the Shanghai sprint after he crashed on his way to the grid at his home race in Australia.

The DNS was a huge early blow to Norris’ hopes of defending his world championship, leaving on just 15 points after the opening two rounds of 2026.

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Norris acknowledged McLaren has a lot of work to do in terms of understanding how to get the best out of the Mercedes power unit, as well as improving its MCL40 challenger.

“It’s still been a weekend where we’ve learned a lot. Already, since last weekend, we learned some things,” Norris said in response to a question by Crash.net.

“It’s also a weekend where we clarified that we need to do a better job with understanding the power unit still, and make some changes. And we also understand the car is not to the level that it needs to be to fight for the podium or a win at the time being.

“We know we have a lot of work ahead, disregarding the issues that we had. The team knows where we stand and they are very realistic about everything, so they’re all working hard.

“They’ve been working hard all season, but especially now, they know what direction we need to work in, in order to get back to what we think we can achieve.”

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Asked if he sees potential for McLaren to turn things around this season, Norris replied: “Absolutely. Every year is different so it’s never a guarantee but I have a lot of hope and faith in the team that we can turn things around from where we are.

“It’s still a very long season. After Japan we’ve got a good little break coming up, so that’s probably a good thing for us to try and figure out things and gives us a little bit more time to develop some things to see if we can get it on the car earlier.

“So as much as it’s not the start of the year we want, I have a lot of confidence in the team that we can still improve things and fight for podiums at some point and fight for wins maybe later in the season. I want to believe that. Tough start, but I have faith.”

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