Norris confidence ‘even higher’ as he eyes title defence

Lando Norris’ confidence is “even higher” for the 2026 Formula 1 season after he won his first drivers’ title last year, McLaren Racing chief executive officer Zak Brown says.

As McLaren launched their car for the new season, two days before the start of the second pre-season test in Bahrain, Brown said Norris wanted to become a multiple title winner.

He predicted the British driver’s team-mate Oscar Piastri would again pose a strong challenge, having led the championship for much of last season only to fade in the final part of the year.

He said: “There are some drivers that say, ‘I’ve done it, now I’m done.’

“And then you have drivers like Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen and Michael Schumacher who go, I’ve done it once, now I want to do it twice and three and four times.

“Lando’s confidence is very high. He’s highly motivated. It’s our job to give he and Oscar equipment again to be able to let him fight it out for the championship. But if we can do that, I would think Oscar and Lando will both be in with a shout.”

Brown said that, as last year, the team would allow their drivers to race each other for the title.

“They continue to be free to race. Again, we will be strategic and intelligent when situations arise. There won’t be much change because they were free to race last year,” he said.

Brown is optimistic McLaren, who also won their second consecutive constructors’ title last year, will be “strong” when the new season starts with the Australian Grand Prix from 6-8 March.

Brown said the evidence of the first ‘shakedown’ test in Spain last month was that they, Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull “all seemed competitive”.

Brown said: “Very risky to judge. Spain, what I would say is we feel like we’ll be competitive.

Brown was dismissive of the row that is taking place in F1 ahead of the season regarding the engine rules.

Mercedes’ rivals have complained to governing body the FIA that the former champions have found a way to circumvent the rules regarding compression ratio.

This is set at a maximum of 16:1 and the rules say it is measured at ambient temperature.

Audi, Honda and Ferrari fear Mercedes have found a way to exploit the way materials expand with heat to have the engines running to a higher compression ratio when the car is on track.

This, some say, could give a power advantage worth about 0.3 seconds a lap. Talks are ongoing on the issue.

McLaren use Mercedes customer engines and Brown said: “It’s typical politics of Formula 1. The engine has been designed and totally compliant within the rules. That’s what the sport is about. I don’t believe there’s a significant advantage.

“They’ll make some story out of it, but reality is the engine is completely compliant past all its tests.”

Asked if he was concerned that the row could lead to a situation where Mercedes were forced to modify their engine, which would be problematic in the timescale before the first race of the season next month, Brown said: “I can’t imagine that you wouldn’t have Mercedes teams on the grid in Australia.”

Brown said it was “too early to tell” whether the complexity of the energy management required under the new regulations introduced this year would make it harder for teams using customer engine supplies to compete with manufacturer teams.

Brown said: “We know we get the same stuff. We’ve proven the last couple of years that a customer team is not at a disadvantage of a works team, so I don’t see any reason why that won’t continue.