McLaren ’mentally exhausting’ to drive - Norris

Lando Norris says McLaren’s 2026 car is now so difficult to drive that extracting performance from it has become "mentally exhausting".

"The car just isn’t fast enough, and it’s very tricky to drive," the reigning world champion is quoted as saying by Krone.

"We’re a long way off the front."

Norris said the MCL40 gives him almost no margin for error.

"It’s just on a knife’s edge, in every single corner," he explained.

"You have to keep it within exactly one percent, and you have to force it to do what you want. You can’t just rely on the front or the rear."

"You have to force everything, and that takes so much concentration and skill that the work behind the wheel is mentally exhausting."

The comments come as McLaren’s title challenge has faded despite Norris winning twice prior to Max Verstappen’s resurgence.

Auto Motor und Sport’s Michael Schmidt believes Norris had begun to think another championship push was possible after his victories in Budapest and Zandvoort.

"I think Lando Norris secretly believed in the title again," Schmidt said.

"He realised the McLaren was back in form. If he could have maintained that until the end of the season, he might still have been in the title fight."

Schmidt also argued that McLaren has not managed its difficult season as cleanly as Mercedes.

"In my opinion, Mercedes is better managed than McLaren," he said.

"They’re very proud of their ’papaya rules’, but they don’t always work in a pinch. Then there’s immediate chaos, as we saw in Singapore."

By contrast, Schmidt believes championship leader Kimi Antonelli may simply be doing what Jenson Button did in 2009 - protecting a points advantage to the very end.

"Antonelli doesn’t need twelve wins to become world champion," said the German.

"It’s enough if he sticks with the eight wins he has now and sees through the rest. Jenson Button did something similar in 2009."

"He started with six wins in seven races and didn’t win another one after that. But he maintained his lead until the end of the season and became world champion."