Lando Norris completed an impressive victory at the Dutch Grand Prix in his McLaren MCL40, but he claims it was his driving rather than a dominant car that brought about the win. Having secured pole position, Norris lost the lead of the race after a red flag restart—triggered by Max Verstappen’s first-lap crash—to championship leader Kimi Antonelli.
Yet a dramatic move on the young Italian later in the race saw Norris retake the lead and charge to the chequered flag. The previous day, Norris had surrendered second place to Charles Leclerc during the Sprint and barely managed to hold off Antonelli to retain third place in the short-form event.
Speaking after his second consecutive Grand Prix win, Norris reflected on the weekend: “We look at yesterday and in qualifying, but we didn’t win yesterday and we didn’t really change much. But I worked a lot on my driving. I want to believe more than everyone else again, and we turned things around today.
“So we certainly have a very similar car, I would say, all in all, to Mercedes, but I think they have a better all-round performing car than we do. We are more specific in high-speed corners. Turn 7 and Turn 8 were our biggest two corners where I gained time today.”
Confidence Drives McLaren’s Turning Point
Norris is usually known for his self-deprecating attitude, but his two recent wins appear to have elevated the world champion’s view of his own capabilities. He claims the MCL40 has a significant weakness that the team must overcome, and that at present, it is his driving making the difference.
“You know, if I make one mistake in qualifying yesterday and [I’m starting] P3, P4, or P5, I’m not going to win, and then no one’s going to be saying these things. So the fact I’m just doing a good job is, I think, why people are saying it.”
McLaren team principal Andrea Stella agrees that his driver is currently making the difference, claiming his confidence is at an all-time high. “Self-confidence is not always demonstrated by being the most aggressive,” said Stella. “In the last couple of races that he won, he didn’t defend pole position—he was actually second at the end of the first lap. I did not hear or perceive any decay in his confidence as to the fact that he was fast. He was just preparing his opportunity and then cashing in on his competitiveness.”
Eliminating the MCL40’s Achilles’ Heel
The move Norris made on Antonelli was truly audacious and proved to be the defining moment in the final race before Zandvoort falls off the F1 calendar next season. Yet Norris claims there remains a fundamental weakness in the MCL40 that makes it difficult for him to defend his driver’s title comfortably.
“I know I’ve just won two races in a row and had two poles in a row, but at the minute, I don’t have the car I need to fight for a championship,” Norris said in his post-race interview. “We’re very, very strong in high-speed corners, and that’s where we’ve improved the car the most… No one matches us in high speed, and that’s a good thing.”
He did, however, highlight that the MCL40 is lacking compared to Mercedes in slow-speed corners. Yet if McLaren can fix this Achilles’ heel, he believes he can chase down Antonelli and defend his title.
“If we can improve on these slow speeds, I’m confident that I can win every race this season. If we don’t, then it’s much more difficult to believe so,” Norris concluded.
Mercedes Struggles Under Cost Cap Constraints
Meanwhile, Mercedes boss Toto Wolff believes his team will struggle to bring the upgrades needed to retain its lead in both championships. “We haven’t got the money to put developments on account,” Wolff said in Zandvoort. “We are trying to evenly split that through the season, based on our calculations of when we can bring the biggest updates and optimize championship points.
“We just do what we can do,” he added. “That’s why it is a development race. If you bring an upgrade, each of the top teams will have a couple of tenths in it, at least. And that’s what you lose. So, yeah, the ride has been a bit tougher than at the beginning of the year.”
Wolff has previously criticized Ferrari for the number of updates it has brought to its SF-26 race car this season, suggesting the team must be in breach of the FIA’s cost cap. “We’re a little bit surprised that Ferrari can throw these huge updates at the car in the way they do,” said the Mercedes team principal prior to the summer break. “In my opinion, they need to be running out of money soon—cost cap money—because we can’t do that. We simply lack the buffer under the cost cap to bring so many parts in the way they do.”
Upgrade Tallies Highlight Development Shift
It was suggested to Wolff that Mercedes may have spent more on its initial car development and run out of budget, unlike Ferrari and McLaren. “I don’t think so,” Wolff responded before revealing what may lie at the heart of Mercedes’ lack of funds to develop its car as aggressively as rivals. “I just think we’re an organization of a certain size and infrastructure. And, you know, in that respect, we had a really quick car. We left between 50 and 100 points on the table with reliability issues, and that would have given us a little bit more of a gap than we have today.”
FIA documentation reveals that Ferrari has declared 40 upgraded components this year, while Red Bull and McLaren stand at 38 each. By way of contrast, Mercedes has just 24 listed—which may explain why neither George Russell nor Kimi Antonelli believes they still have the fastest machine.
Is it really the case that Mercedes has such a bloated organization that it has no budget remaining for further developments on the W17? The reality is that in recent qualifying sessions, the top four cars have been separated by just a tenth of a second or so. Maybe Norris is right—perhaps it is the driver making the difference.
In the same machine, Oscar Piastri is struggling, finishing over 30 seconds behind his teammate at the Dutch Grand Prix. In the drivers’ standings, Norris sits fourth on 159 points, while Piastri is seventh, having just reached triple digits at 104 points.
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