Former Formula 1 race winner Johnny Herbert believes McLaren will provide equal support for Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri next season.<\/p>\n
McLaren<\/a> had to manage a tight championship battle between both of its drivers across the 24-round 2025 season, with \u2018papaya rules\u2019 leading to flashpoints on track at various moments.<\/p>\n In the closing rounds, a lot of noise was generated around McLaren focusing its efforts on Lando Norris<\/a>\u2019 charge over Oscar Piastri\u2019<\/a>s, with the Australian parliament even weighing in on this<\/a>.<\/p>\n But, three-time grand prix winner and former Sky pundit Johnny Herbert believes McLaren maintained fairness between Norris and Piastri, and doesn\u2019t expect that to change in 2026.<\/p>\n \u201cI think there’s going to be fairness at McLaren, and I’m one of those who think fairness is always a positive thing because it just shows who will be the best,\u201d he told NewsBettingSites.<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n \u201cSo that support mechanism is there for both of them.<\/p>\n \u201cYou can always find certain races or certain incidents where you say that favoured Lando and that favoured Oscar. I know Oscar felt there was a bit more support for Lando.<\/p>\n \u201cI don’t think [McLaren supporting Norris more] is the case because at the end of the day, it’s down to that raw pace.<\/p>\n \u201cIt does show McLaren has the right ingredients for that support.<\/p>\n \u201cThe one thing I still think could have bitten them much more in the backside than it did were those decisions, what happened in Monza for example, or what happened in Hungary last year.<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n \u201cThose situations should not really come into play.<\/p>\n \u201cYou’ve just got to let it flow, let it happen and the drivers will respond in the way that they feel fit.<\/p>\n \u201cIn Abu Dhabi Lando drove it in a very smart way, as did Oscar, who tried very hard to put Max under pressure.<\/p>\n \u201cSo, it was a double win for McLaren in many respects because it was putting pressure on the guy that was putting pressure on McLaren, which was Max.<\/p>\n \u201cLando drove the perfect race and did everything he needed to do.<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n \u201cHe was always just enough ahead of Leclerc. He knew Charles’ tyres were going to go off, and he made the perfect strategy and drive.\u201d<\/p>\n Subscribe to our F1 Newsletter<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former Formula 1 race winner Johnny Herbert believes McLaren will provide equal support for Lando Norris and Oscar…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":373111,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,1737,913,806,805,803,804,2333,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-373110","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-motosport","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-lando-norris","11":"tag-mclaren","12":"tag-motor","13":"tag-motor-sports","14":"tag-motosport","15":"tag-motosports","16":"tag-oscar-piastri","17":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/373110","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=373110"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/373110\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/373111"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=373110"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=373110"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=373110"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}