{"id":623496,"date":"2026-04-22T12:21:11","date_gmt":"2026-04-22T12:21:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/623496\/"},"modified":"2026-04-22T12:21:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-22T12:21:11","slug":"oscar-piastri-and-lando-norris-paying-the-price-for-mclaren-f1-world-titles-in-2026-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/623496\/","title":{"rendered":"Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris \u2018paying the price\u2019 for McLaren F1 world titles in 2026 season"},"content":{"rendered":"

McLaren\u2019s slow start to the 2026 season is them \u201cpaying the price\u201d for last year\u2019s world title triumphs, says Lando Norris.<\/p>\n

Norris claimed his maiden Drivers\u2019 Championship in 2025, pipping reigning champion Max Verstappen and teammate Oscar Piastri.<\/p>\n

McLaren also dominated the Constructors\u2019 Championship, claiming it for a second successive year and by a huge 364-point margin.<\/p>\n

But there has been a significant drop-off this year after a horror start to life under the new regulations.<\/p>\n

Piastri crashed in the first race in Melbourne as Norris claimed fifth, before neither of them started the Chinese Grand Prix due to issues with their cars.<\/p>\n

While they showed promise last time out in Japan \u2014 Piastri finishing second and Norris fifth \u2014 they are already well adrift of Mercedes who have won all three races to date.<\/p>\n

And Norris, who sits four points ahead of Piastri, feels their successes in 2025 have hampered them at the start of this new F1 era.<\/p>\n

Speaking to The Guardian<\/a>, he said: \u201cIt\u2019s been a difficult start. <\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s the price you pay for winning the world championship and throwing all your eggs in one basket. But 1776860470 is a time to work on developments and upgrades without races.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s very difficult to say (how quickly McLaren can improve) because you never know when other people are going to bring upgrades.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve given up trying to guess what\u2019s going to happen in Formula One. But we\u2019re confident we can have a much more competitive car over the next month or two.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Piastri's<\/p>\n

The F1 has taken an extensive break after the Bahrain and Saudi Arabian Grands Prix were cancelled due to the conflict in the Middle East.<\/p>\n

But after a five-week hiatus, the sport returns in Miami on the first weekend of May.<\/p>\n

Last year, Piastri claimed victory ahead of Norris \u2014 with the rest of the field more than 30 seconds behind the dominant McLarens.<\/p>\n

But this season it is Mercedes duo Kimi Antonelli and George Russell who are poised to fight it out for the victory.<\/p>\n

Russell won in Melbourne, before Antonelli claimed back-to-back triumphs in China and Japan to take a nine-point lead to the US.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"McLaren\u2019s slow start to the 2026 season is them \u201cpaying the price\u201d for last year\u2019s world title triumphs,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":623497,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,806,805,803,804,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-623496","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-motor","11":"tag-motor-sports","12":"tag-motosport","13":"tag-motosports","14":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/623496","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=623496"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/623496\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/623497"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=623496"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=623496"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=623496"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}