Photo: McLaren
Norris stays cautious despite McLaren breakthrough in Miami
Lando Norris believes McLaren has every reason to feel optimistic after its strongest Formula 1 weekend of the 2026 season in Miami, but the British driver has warned that one good result does not guarantee long-term success.
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After a difficult start to the 2026 Formula 1 season, McLaren finally delivered a breakthrough performance at the Miami Grand Prix weekend.
The Woking-based team had struggled during the opening rounds, with reliability issues and three retirements across the first two race weekends hurting its early campaign. However, Miami marked a major step forward, as McLaren showed competitive pace throughout the event.
Lando Norris started the momentum by winning the sprint race before securing second place in Sunday’s grand prix. Team-mate Oscar Piastri completed a double podium for McLaren by finishing third.
Despite the encouraging result, Norris remains careful about making strong conclusions too early in the season.
“Certainly,” Norris said during the press conferenfce after Miami GP when asked if the weekend made him more confident about McLaren’s future prospects.
“I think you’d have to feel silly if you don’t feel confident about the future when we improved so much this weekend. We also know it’s a track that suits us. I’m always that guy that looks at things on the slightly more glass-half-empty side, but this is a track that suits us and in the past has not suited the Mercedes quite so well. Yet they were still very fast, and we’re going to go to a track (in Canada) that Mercedes have probably been the best at over the last five, six years. So, we have to wait and see,” the McLaren driver added.
McLaren is expected to continue bringing upgrades over the coming races, but Norris stressed that Formula 1 form can change very quickly depending on the type of circuit and conditions.
“I know we’re bringing upgrades, but in Formula 1 it’s too easy to judge things over one race,” Norris explained.
“You need to see how you are over a number of races and different styles of track: street circuits, hot tracks, cold tracks, tight and twisty, fast circuits. So, there’s no point getting ahead of ourselves. We’ve had a very good weekend, I’m very proud of the team. But I also want to make sure they keep pushing and keep trying to improve things, because we still need that,” the British driver concluded.
