'A second a lap' slower - McLaren go from hero to zero at Australian GP

Lando Norris, McLaren, Bahrain, 2026 — Photo: © IMAGO

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'A second a lap' slower - McLaren go from hero to zero at Australian GP

Lando Norris believes he has a long season ahead of him with McLaren

Matthew Hobkinson Lead Editor

F1 Editor & Journalist

Tuesday 10 March 2026 09:12

F1 champion Lando Norris has admitted that he was happy with P5 at the Australian Grand Prix despite being almost a second per lap slower than Ferrari ahead of them.

Melbourne was Norris' first race in his bid to defend his title - something that looks a million miles away for McLaren after the opening weekend.

Oscar Piastri's bizarre crash on the reconnaissance lap left Norris to fight for points on his own. But come the end of the race he had more work to do fending off Verstappen behind him - coming all the way back from P20 - rather than chasing down the Ferraris ahead.

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Norris picked up a fifth place finish and 10 points for himself and the team, but he was a whopping 51.7s back from overall race winner George Russell.

Norris: We have 'zero chance' to match Ferrari

Speaking after the race, Norris revealed just how far back he believes McLaren are compared to the likes of Red Bull and Ferrari.

"We finished pretty much where we deserved to, I think it's quite clear that Red Bull is quicker, Max came from last and almost beat us," he said.

"We struggled with some things on the car at the beginning. We made some tweaks and that improved things, but we’re nowhere near where we need to be. Probably more so from a car perspective, today showed we’re a long way off, a very, very long way off. We have a lot of work to do.

"We’re running the same care [as Piastri]. This is nothing that is going to happen overnight, or one, or two weeks' time. I was almost a second a lap off. Not quite like that but at least five or six tenths a lap off. Some of that is still understanding the PU [power unit].

"Ferrari, from what we see, quite clearly have the best car, their cornering speeds are unbelievable, so for us to match that is zero chance at the minute.

"We have to work very hard to understand things and learn as much as we can from this part of the season - this part of the season sets up the rest of it basically.

"The more we learn, the more we can understand, the better we’ll be at the end of the season.

"It's looking like it's going to be a long one, a tough one. I was happy with P5."

F1 McLaren Lando Norris Australian Grand Prix