Lando Norris has suggested that McLaren \u201cneed to improve the car quite a lot\u201d following his P5 finish in the season-opening Australian Grand Prix, with the Briton admitting that he was \u201cstruggling with a lot of things\u201d during the race.<\/p>\n
After team mate Oscar Piastri<\/a> spun off the track on his way to the grid<\/a>, Norris<\/a> was the papaya squad\u2019s sole runner in the race. Starting from P6 on the grid, the reigning World Champion kept himself within the top-10 battle but could not match the pace of the leading Mercedes<\/a> and Ferrari<\/a> cars.<\/p>\n Despite facing pressure from a chasing Max Verstappen<\/a> in the latter stages, Norris held onto fifth place<\/a> at the chequered flag and later admitted that his afternoon in Melbourne had been challenging.<\/p>\n \u201c[It was] tough, of course, trying to learn on the go and understand things \u2013 difficult, not an easy thing to try and understand and to maximise,\u201d the 26-year-old explained. \u201cBut I think we learned through the race \u2013 we clearly did because at the beginning of the race we were pretty slow.<\/p>\n \u201cAt the end of the race we were, I think, a little bit better and a bit more competitive, but comparing to Max, comparing to the cars ahead, not even close. We have a lot of things to look into, to try and understand, and I think we have to understand the power unit more, but that\u2019s what today was for and we\u2019ll see what we can learn for next week.<\/p>\n \u201cBut it\u2019s clear today that we also need to improve the car quite a lot \u2013 to be honest I would say it\u2019s more about the car than just the power unit, but I need to go and look at the data and understand things a little bit more.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was difficult with the car and I was struggling with a lot of things. We\u2019ll look at stuff and see what we can improve.\u201d<\/p>\n While there were difficulties for McLaren<\/a> during the first race weekend of 2026, Norris acknowledged that there is still a chance for the squad to catch up with their rivals in the campaign ahead.<\/p>\n