McLaren still has a lot of work to do ahead of the Australian GP, Lando Norris concludes after the first test week in Bahrain. According to the reigning world champion, both Ferrari and Red Bull currently look stronger, and his own team is “certainly not quick enough” compared with those two rivals: “We have a lot of work to do.”
The McLaren team not only took the constructors’ title in the past two years, but in 2025 their driver Lando Norris also claimed the drivers’ championship. The British outfit obviously hope to defend those titles in 2026, but according to the reigning world champion that will be a tough ask.
“We’ve done a fair number of laps, but we’re certainly not quick enough,” Norris told Sky Sports after the second day of testing in Bahrain. “We have a lot of work to do, things to investigate and improve. I think (on Thursday) we got, for the first time, some inkling of where we stand in terms of pace, at least relative to Ferrari, who did a full long run. Right now we’re not really close to them. We’re definitely not bad, but we’re not quick enough.”
Red Bull
Ferrari was not the only team to catch Norris’ eye. “Red Bull have a strong power unit, as it looks now,” the world champion continued. “They deploy their energy efficiently (their power unit energy management, ed.). We need to understand how they manage that. Red Bull seem to have done good work, and the power unit looks very strong. They’ve done it well. At the moment they’re a step ahead of us.”
