Pre-Season Testing

F1 Testing: Lando Norris reveals shocking McLaren turnaround

Chris Deeley Friday 30 January 2026 21:53

Lando Norris has revealed just how hard his McLaren F1 team have been working at the year's first test in Barcelona.

The newly-crowned world champion went out on track with the champion's number 1 on his car for the first time on Wednesday, before discussing his day with F1.com later.

Norris revealed the McLaren MCL40 was assembled for the very first time on that same Wednesday morning before he took to the track, praising the work put in by his team.

It's still completely unclear whether the new edition of the car will be a title challenger in 2026, with the new regulations shaking up the field in a big way, but the Brit seemed satisfied with a 'productive' day on track.

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Norris: Feels good to be back

"It's a good feeling. Just being back here, our first day on track, our first time that everyone gets to see the car in one piece. It's literally not been built until this morning," said Norris, noting the impressive turnaround from his team.

"It's an incredible thing, it's nice to see it all come together and see all the hard work that everyone does.

"Then I get to go and have some fun and drive it! It turned out to be a decent day, today was really just a first understanding of the whole car, understanding how it works, going through the manual of everything.

"A productive day, but it's one that's really about figuring stuff out, making sure things are working as they should, understanding things, getting our first picture of all of it.

"A good day for me just to be back driving and understanding some of the differences, and a good one for the engineers, the mechanics, the whole team, to get the first look at the regulations for this year."

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F1 McLaren Lando Norris