{"id":259753,"date":"2026-05-05T21:22:14","date_gmt":"2026-05-05T21:22:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/259753\/"},"modified":"2026-05-05T21:22:14","modified_gmt":"2026-05-05T21:22:14","slug":"did-mclaren-maximise-everything-in-miami-lando-norris-isnt-so-sure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/259753\/","title":{"rendered":"Did McLaren \u2018maximise everything\u2019 in Miami? Lando Norris isn\u2019t so sure"},"content":{"rendered":"

After a tough start to the 2026 Formula 1 season,\u00a0McLaren<\/a> was back on form in Miami with drivers Lando Norris<\/a> and Oscar Piastri<\/a> finishing the race in second and third respectively. But that might not have been enough for the reigning world champion, who questioned whether his team had \u201cmaximised everything\u201d in Florida.<\/p>\n

The fourth round of the 2026 campaign saw McLaren roll out a raft of upgrades to the MCL40, which came as it finally got on top of the energy deployment of its Mercedes<\/a> power unit \u2013 the same used by championship leaders Kimi Antonelli<\/a> and George Russell<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The change was drastic for McLaren, with Norris claiming pole and the win in the sprint and following it up with second place in the grand\u00a0prix.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think I’m just very happy with the situation we’re in, which is we’re fighting for wins or fighting for the win today, a pole, the sprint win,\u201d the Briton said in the press conference after Sunday\u2019s race.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, I think when I look at it from that side, it’s been a very, very strong weekend.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like I’ve done a very good job the whole weekend too. So, there’s a lot, a lot of positives. And like they just said, we’ve improved such a big amount.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"McLaren <\/p>\n

McLaren made “such a big step” in Miami, Lando Norris says<\/p>\n

Photo by: Rebecca Blackwell \/ POOL \/ AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n

However, while Norris said he was \u201cproud of the team\u201d for the turnaround it performed following a tough start to the year, he admitted he had wondered if there could have been more on the cards for McLaren at the Miami GP.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe fact we made such a big step this weekend is great to see,\u201d Norris added.<\/p>\n

“But you always have to look at and ask yourself the question, \u2018do you feel like you maximised everything today?\u2019 And I’m unsure about that.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, I feel like there was a chance that we could have fought better for it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Specifically, Norris highlighted the way he lost out to race winner Antonelli, who stopped earlier to pull off an undercut and pass the McLaren driver. This, Norris says, gave the Italian warmer tyres to make breezing past him out of Turn 2 much easier.<\/p>\n

“We should have just never been in that situation in the first place,\u201d Norris said.<\/p>\n

\"Andrea <\/p>\n

Andrea Stella admits the pitstop was a “decisive factor” in the race<\/p>\n

Photo by: Ryan Pierse \/ Getty Images<\/p>\n

Norris\u2019 sentiment about the race result was echoed by team boss Andrea Stella at the end of the weekend, who agreed that there things to learn as well as positives to take away.<\/p>\n

Stella also\u00a0revealed a few further shortcomings that meant beating Antonelli on Sunday would be an uphill battle for the papaya squad.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the timing of the pitstop was the decisive factor, but at the same time we should be careful that we don’t only see it from a strategic point of view,\u201d Stella explained. \u201cBecause you have the timing of the pitstop, which is a strategic element, but then we lost time in pitlane, for instance, which is an execution aspect.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is a combination of the driver stopping, the pitstop itself, and then we have the in-lap, and we lost some time in the in-lap as well.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, it should not be confused with a strategic element. It is always a team element, and as a team we have done a great job in making McLaren competitive again for the win, and as a team, probably today we didn’t capitalise.\u201d<\/p>\n

Additional reporting by Stuart Codling<\/p>\n

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– The Motorsport.com Team<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After a tough start to the 2026 Formula 1 season,\u00a0McLaren was back on form in Miami with drivers…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":259754,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[112432,110073,31514,80149,63812,123,31515,125,124],"class_list":["post-259753","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-miami","tag-did-mclaren-u2018maximise-everythingu2019-in-miami-lando-norris-isnu2019t-so-sure","tag-f1-miami-grand-prix-2026","tag-formula-1","tag-lando-norris","tag-mclaren","tag-miami","tag-miami-gp","tag-miami-headlines","tag-miami-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259753","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=259753"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259753\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/259754"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=259753"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=259753"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=259753"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}