Lando Norris: McLaren driver’s confidence ‘higher than ever’

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.

“Very early days, but indications that we will be strong. But it would be premature to make any predictions beyond that.”