Lando Norris reveals "painful as hell" problem only affecting his McLaren

Throughout the weekend at the Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia, Lando Norris has struggled with straight-line speed issues with his McLaren.

The issues have only plagued his car and have not impacted Oscar Piastri on the other side of the garage. Despite these issues, the 2025 F1 world champion was able to score points on Sunday as he finished in ninth place.

Heading into the Singapore Grand Prix next weekend, the British driver knows he cannot use the speed issues as an excuse and that he must make improvements himself.

When discussing the straight-line speed issues, Norris said, "I have no idea. I mean, the team is trying, but I'm losing almost two-tenths every lap.

“Two-tenths a lap over 55 laps, it's painful as hell, so it's making my life pretty damn difficult. 

“But there are also other things I could have done better; that's not just an excuse. But there are also things I can do better, and the team needs to do better as well."

This follows McLaren Team Principal Andrea Stella’s comments regarding the issues with Norris’ car on Saturday following qualifying.

He stated, "We should say that the issue we see on Lando’s car is about a lack of straight-line speed."

"So we see that in the power-limited section, the car accelerates a little less and develops a little bit less top speed, all the other parameters being the same. We talk about probably between one and two kph, like they are small quantities.

"They are even difficult to see because as soon as Lando, for instance, has a little bit of slipstream from a car four seconds ahead, now you see Lando faster than the other car.

"It’s small quantities that we see statistically, and we should more precisely talk about the deficit of straight-line speed. OK, which we can quantify in a lap time loss that I would say in excess of one tenth of a second, possibly between one and two tenths of a second."

Although there was a point towards the end of the race where Norris could not have finished the Grand Prix at all, as he had to take evasive action at Turn 1.

When George Russell stopped under the safety car and the field slowed down, Norris nearly collided with the cars ahead of him, but instead took to the gravel at Turn 1 and dropped back to 11th place.

When discussing the near miss, Norris put all the blame on himself, “I think I just couldn't see from my angle how much they'd literally just stopped on the racing line. 

“At the end of the day, it's my job to judge that kind of thing, but that was just not a normal situation. 

“So, of course, it caught me out. I don't really have anyone else to blame but myself, but there was nothing else I could do in that situation."