Lando Norris has been on top of his form ever since the 2024 Miami Grand Prix, where he earned his first victory. Last year, the McLaren driver nearly won the Drivers’ Championship, but there were some minor mistakes on his side that allowed Max Verstappen to take the title once again.
Coming into 2025, Norris will look to win his first-ever Drivers’ Championship in Formula 1. He will be hoping that McLaren delivers once again by providing the best car on the grid. The car was the strongest on the grid towards the end of last year, and they will be hoping to continue the same heading into the first race at Melbourne.
However, Norris also pointed out a massive issue in the MCL39 that could add hurdles to his hope to win the championship this year if not mitigated.
Lando Norris points out a huge flaw in the MCL39
During the first day of pre-season tests, McLaren took the top spot with Lando Norris. However, that performance dwindled as both drivers were below P10 on the second day. That hasn’t bothered last year’s runner-up, as he is happy with where the car is.
“It feels similar [to last year’s car], which is a good start, and that’s where we wanted to start, at least. Nothing’s been majorly addressed. It’s not like that much has changed – we’ve just tried to make the car quicker all round and add more load.”
Lando Norris mentioned how the car is similar to last year’s car. Last year, the MCL38 won the WCC for McLaren after a 26-year drought. The new car being similar to last year’s is praiseworthy since the MCL38 turned into a rocket ship after the mid-season upgrades. But if the other teams have adapted to the MCL38, the new car can fall behind easily.
The British driver also pointed out another flaw in the new car, which needs to be looked at extensively.
Watch Lando’s hands, and wait for the super slow-mo of the wheel at the end 🤯#F1Testing #F1 pic.twitter.com/GEhQHXYgyG
— Formula 1 (@F1) February 28, 2025
“But the most simple way of looking at it, honestly, is we still want to try and focus on some areas more than others. We’ve struggled a bit more with the rear than we would have liked, but it’s still early days,” added Norris.
The MCL38 seems to be prone to quickly losing its rear during tight turns. While the car performs well overall, a little nudge can make it prone to spinning out.
Norris added that “everything will get better” as the team looks to start strong in Australia, even if they don’t have a massive advantage.
McLaren boss Andrea Stella has come out and agreed with Norris’s statements on the MCL39.
Andrea Stella backs assessment of MCL39
Andrea Stella backed up Lando Norris on his comments about the MCL39 being weak on the rear during the pre-season tests, but he also pointed out why the car may have felt weak.
“So I think the comments of Lando related to the rear instability are fair,” Stella said.
“At the same time, when you come to Bahrain, I would be very, very surprised if you didn’t have rear-end limitation and traction limitation. Somehow, these limitations are inherent to the circuit,” he added.
Stella admitted that the car does have issues with the rear but also attributed them to the Bahrain circuit. The track is known to punish cars with rear instability, as seen with Norris’s spin in the tests.
Our MCL39 doing it’s thing 😍 pic.twitter.com/XvA9W8d5an
— McLaren (@McLarenF1) February 26, 2025
“They were an objective of our development, and according to what we have seen in the data, through what we’ve added in car development, if anything, we think we have improved from this point of view, but you improve by a quantity that is never going to make these kind of problems disappear.”
The McLaren boss also mentioned that the team is currently working on the car and that they’ve managed to suppress the issues to a greater degree than before.
Since the Bahrain circuit has tight turns, most cars have issues with the rear end destabilizing. McLaren can only do so much to solve an issue inherent to the track. However, the team is currently on a positive climb in regards to the car.
The season opener fast approaches, and fans can only hope that McLaren gets everything sorted to bag both the WCC and WDC this time around ahead of rivals Red Bull, with Max Verstappen going strong, and Ferrari with the strongest driver lineup of 2025.
