Lando Norris, current F1 champion: “If the car is not as fast, you are judged differently. I know that you understand it and I hope that those who watch F1 understand it too. If you don’t have the car, it doesn’t mean that you are a worse driver. And that is always complicated”

Lando Norris perfectly reflects what F1 is. A driver can drive better than last year, but if his car is less competitive or there are other faster cars, the results can be worse. Have you forgotten to pilot? No not at all. And vice versa: Has Antonelli suddenly become a superhero? It has improved, but above all, it has the best car with the best engine. And he has known how to take advantage of it better than Russell.

And each and every one of the F1 drivers depends on the machine they have and the limit that sets the performance of their car. That is something that everyone in the paddock is clear about. The career of Fernando Alonso with an 8th place in the Bahrain GP with a car very far from those at the top and a less powerful engine, and in turn, give a worse rating to a driver who has finished ahead with a better car.

Therefore, Lando launched a key reflection so that all viewers can understand How to evaluate the performance of each driver in each race: They must understand what limit the car had and what the driver was able to extract.

If the driver manages to maximize the performance of the car, even if it is far from winning, his work will have been good, regardless of any result and even if the current champion has not won the race.

“Limited by the car? Not much can be done about it. You are always judged by your last race, particularly on TV and even more so in F1. If the car is not as fast on one weekend compared to others, you are judged differently. I know that you understand it and I hope that those who watch F1 understand it. We are all in F1 for a reason and that doesn’t mean that if you don’t have the car, you are a worse driver. And that is always complicated,” he began in his long reflection.

“And this year there have been many races where I have been able to extract more. And I’m not saying that last year I did it badly, but I’m talking about being able to extract 99% versus 99.5%. The three pole classifications have been by less than a tenth, even by thousandths, but those poles allowed me to win 3 races. If I hadn’t been on pole I probably wouldn’t have won. And that’s how much a very small margin can change the result of a race,” he added.

And he continued.

“In the second half of last year, I think I performed like this year, but this year you also have to drive the car differently and I have also had to adapt to driving this car. And there are two aspects: the general level that can be extracted from the car and the level that can be extracted from the power unit and the tires, that is the additional level, and it is where I think I have done a great job. I have been able to understand these new regulations quickly,” he argued.

“But it doesn’t bother me if people from the outside see it as good or not. I’m more interested in the team seeing it. My job is to get the most out of myself every weekend and I’m happy with that, although I would be happier if I could fight to win, but sometimes the goal doesn’t have to be winning, maybe one weekend the best thing is to get a 5th place. It’s about getting the most out of the car and the team and that’s the only thing you can be happy with when a race ends,” he added in this regard.

Lack of top speed

In the last two races, Lando Norris and McLaren have been affected by a striking lack of top speed on a straight line compared to Mercedes, despite having the best engine. According to Andrea Stella, as she said in Sepang, that cost Lando between one and two tenths in the last Bahrain GP in Malaysia, something that prevented him from fighting for pole.

In that sense, Lando believes that the team may have understood and resolved that X file and remembers that in Singapore top speed does not count as much due to the lack of straights. He wants to fight again at the top with his McLaren.

“Yes, I have hope, but we will have to see on the track how much we have improved. Top speed on this circuit is not a priority and it doesn’t penalize you that much. You always want to go as fast as you can on a straight line and it’s difficult to come out of a corner well and end up going slow. “They have been frustrating weekends to find out what the problems have been and why we have constantly lacked top speed and performance,” he commented at a press conference before the 2026 F1 Singapore GP.

“In this battle in which we have been in the last classifications it has cost us several positions. It has cost us a lot, but at the same time, there are things that I can also improve. “I trust in the work the team has done to find out what happened and I have hope that it will be better this weekend, but first we have to get on the track,” he added.

“We learned a lot of things in Sepang, both on my part and the team. Also, from the point of view of the car, how we have to improve and how we can return to the level of the previous races,” he highlighted.

“The team has worked hard to learn from last week and how I should improve. “There are quite a few things, some obvious, like the top speed and the problems I’ve had with the car, which are obvious, and then there are more technical aspects, like unlocking more performance from the car like in previous races.”he explained.

“Does it depend on the circuit? In Baku we were not particularly fast either. But it is true that in Sepang the abrasive asphalt had something to do with it, but it is good to be able to see that some performance that we lacked can now return. A little depends on the circuit itself and the last couple of circuits have not gone in favor of our strengths as Madrid did. We have performed below expectations (in the last races),” he concluded about McLaren’s decline in the last two races.