Lando Norris remains confident that McLaren can still build the \u201cbest car on the grid\u201d in 2026, with the Briton admitting that he and the team \u201chave to be patient\u201d following a tough start to the campaign.<\/p>\n
While Norris<\/a> claimed P5 in the season-opening Australian Grand Prix, the squad endured a challenging outing one week on in China when both Norris and team mate Oscar Piastri<\/a> were unable to start the race<\/a> due to separate technical issues.<\/p>\n During Thursday\u2019s media day ahead of Round 3 of the season in Japan<\/a>, Norris responded positively when asked if the team had been able to fully understand the problems.<\/p>\n \u201cYep, alongside HPP [Mercedes High Performance Powertrains],\u201d the reigning World Champion explained. \u201cIt took a little bit of time to figure things out. Of course it hurt us as a team \u2013 it certainly didn\u2019t make us look good to have two cars not starting a race.<\/p>\n \u201cI think what hurt more is the fact it was out of our control, but with HPP we\u2019ve worked hard to figure things out, to understand how it happened, why it happened, and of course we\u2019ll do everything we can to make sure it doesn\u2019t happen again.<\/p>\n \u201cYou live and you learn \u2013 it was a tough one for all of us. None of us want to have a weekend like that, and especially starting Sunday like that. It hurt a lot, but I think at the same time a good time for us to learn, step back and move on to this weekend.\u201d<\/p>\n Despite the tricky start to 2026, Norris believes that there is still plenty to get out of the MCL40.<\/p>\n \u201cThe car\u2019s got a lot of potential,\u201d he conceded. \u201cWe\u2019re certainly not where we want it to be. I think the real question to ask is would I rather be here and have won last year, or would I rather have a slightly better car now and not have won last year, and I think you know what my answer would be.<\/p>\n \u201cYou can\u2019t have the best of everything, and I think as a team we certainly are not where we want to be and where we desire to be, but I think we all know within the team what we can achieve. Now is just as good of a time as ever to prove exactly what we can do as a team, against Ferrari<\/a>, against Mercedes<\/a>, who are performing very well at the minute.<\/p>\n \u201cBut I know the boys and the girls back at the factory are working very hard, and there\u2019s good progress happening \u2013 it takes time to improve on some things.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not like we\u2019re bad, we\u2019re still the third best team at the minute, but we certainly enjoy being first a lot more than third. Time will tell \u2013 we\u2019ve got some things in the pipeline and everyone\u2019s working hard, so we\u2019re ambitious to get back to the top.\u201d<\/p>\n