Norris identifies a new factor hurting McLaren's title defence

Lando Norris feels McLaren’s performances in Formula 1 this year are being held back by a factor beyond the unreliability that has blighted its 2026 season so far.

A combination of reduced downforce levels with the all-new cars, plus increasing tyre pressures, has resulted in a different behaviour from the 2026 Pirelli tyres – especially on the approach to corners.

Mercedes driver George Russell said in Spain on Thursday: “The tyres are quite vastly different this year due to the tyre pressures that we are being prescribed by Pirelli. These are the highest tyre pressures we've ever ran, probably ever, in F1.”

One of the consequences of the stiffer tyres is that the tyres require a more delicate touch on corner entry – and are at risk of easily being overloaded if asked to do too much braking and turning at once.

McLaren boss Andrea Stella said recently: “The tyres don't seem to have much capacity of transitioning from the pure longitudinal to the pure lateral in the corner.”

This trait, which means drivers are having to be more cautious in treating the braking and cornering phases distinctly, is something that Norris thinks McLaren is not as strong at as other cars.

“I think honestly a bit of the reason why we feel we struggled so much at Monaco was the fact we could not do two things at once,” explained Norris.

“We couldn't brake and turn. You're either braking or you're turning. There's no kind of middle ground.

“I don't think that's been ever our strong suit. It’s always been a strong suit for Mercedes, and Ferrari, maybe a little bit less but also Red Bull.

“I think Monaco highlighted the difficulties of that kind of characteristic, that's also what we're struggling with at the minute. So we're trying to figure out the best way to have a car that can deal with those limitations.”

This year’s tyre pressures are a clear step up from last year. In Monaco the front and rear tyre starting pressures jumped from 20/19Psi last year to 24/23Psi this year.

For this year’s Barcelona Grand Prix, the changes are more at the rear – with last year’s 26/22Psi minimums having shifted to 26/25Psi.

The stiffer tyres, smaller dimensions and reduction in downforce have all combined to make the tyres harder to fire up – which also brings performance limitations.

Oscar Piastri said he has experienced moments this season when his tyres have failed to get into the proper operating window at all.

“They are definitely difficult tyres to get in the right temperature window, and it's been a long time since we've had to do warm up laps,” he explained.

“In Canada, my tyres didn't get in the window at all. It's been a while since we've had those kind of problems with Pirelli tyres.

"They're certainly difficult to manage for different reasons compared to the past few years.”

McLaren well knows, however, that one of the best ways to overcome this tyre weakness is to get more downforce onto its car.

Stella said: “We do observe the limitation we experience with the car and that can definitely be helped by having more load on the tyres - as we think Mercedes has been able to have compared to where we are at the moment in our phase of development on our car.”

Title defence feeling impossible

Beyond the ultimate pace issues that McLaren is looking to address, the team’s title defence has not been helped by a run of mechanical problems that have overshadowed the start of its season.

As well as a double failure to start for its drivers in the Chinese Grand Prix, world champion Norris has endured back-to-back retirements in Canada and Monaco that has left him sixth in the standings, 98 points adrift of runaway leader Kimi Antonelli.

While Norris has not totally given up on winning the title again this year, he has admitted it is starting to feel a step too far.

“It hurts, of course, because I know I'm not still not fighting for wins, and we're not fighting for podiums and things like that at the moment,” he said.

“When you keep having not amazing weekends, and when you have things that keep going wrong, you cannot build confidence in the car, you cannot try things.

“All of this is making any title defence pretty impossible for the time being. So, yeah, it hurts me, but it also hurts the whole team.

“None of us want to not finish races, we all want to give ourselves another chance to defend the constructors’ and to defend the drivers’. But for the time being, it's just impossible.”