Lando Norris reveals Mercedes strength that has twice denied McLaren F1 victories

Lando Norris has revealed the main aspect that he believes gives Mercedes the upper hand over McLaren after narrowly missing out on victory at the Miami Grand Prix.

McLaren has finished second to Mercedes in each of the last two grands prix, with Oscar Piastri trailing Kimi Antonelli in Japan, and Norris following the Italian home in the United States.

While Norris was able to break the Mercedes stranglehold on the season with victory in the Miami Sprint race, the longer grand prix combined with a pit stop one lap later than Antonelli’s, allowed the championship leader to slip past.

“I don’t believe we were as quick as the Mercedes in outright [pace],” said Norris.

“I’m not taking anything away from Kimi, he did a very good job. There were just moments and certain places; like the high speed, where we know they’re a bit better, and that never gave me an opportunity to get close enough on the back straight and start something.

“I feel like I got everything out of the car the whole weekend, and we know where we’re lacking still a little bit to the Mercedes.

“But I was still surprised how quick we were relative, the fact that we could just fight the Mercedes the whole race; the fact it was as 24 second gap back to the other cars.”

Recent podium returns have seen McLaren climb back up the constructors’ table, where the team now sits in third place on 94 points – 16 behind Ferrari, but 64 clear of Red Bull.

Norris added: “There are plenty of positives, so we need to obviously look at all of them, take them on board, and consolidate all of those things. But we always want the best, and we need to look at where we can improve as well.

“Honestly, I feel like I was on top of a lot of things. I feel like it’s not often I give myself credit, but in Miami, I did a very good job.”