McLaren make F1 car “adjustments” after understanding Lando Norris’ struggles

McLaren team boss Andrea Stella has revealed they’ve made some “adjustments” to their F1 car to help Lando Norris feel more at ease when driving.

Since the start of the 2025 F1 season, Norris has complained about the unpredictability of this year’s McLaren challenger.

Despite Norris’ complaints, he is leading the F1 drivers’ championship, one point clear of Max Verstappen.

McLaren teammate Oscar Piastri enjoyed a decisive edge over Norris in final practice, topping the timesheets by over six-tenths.

Speaking in Friday’s press conference in Bahrain, Stella confirmed that Norris has struggled with a “particular phase of driving the car.”

“I think on Lando’s side, there’s especially a particular phase of driving the car that doesn’t make him entirely comfortable,” Stella explained.

“I think we’ve achieved a very good understanding of what that is. It would be inappropriate to share the details, but let me say that even for this race, we’ve made some adjustments to the car – going back to some solutions that we think may improve the predictability of the car in relation to Lando’s driving input.

“So it’s actually an interesting weekend even from this point of view, and we look forward to seeing what we will learn.”

Piastri “more confident” in qualifying

For Piastri, it’s been an impressive turnaround, particularly over one lap.

Piastri was beaten 20-4 in the qualifying head-to-head last year, with Norris dominating the teammate battle on a Saturday.

While Norris leads this year’s battle 2-1 after three races, Piastri has proved to be a close match.

It can be argued that Piastri has looked faster at all three weekends - but has failed to maximise the pace of the MCL39.

Speaking about Piastri’s improvement, Stella said: “I think we see that Oscar is just more confident in qualifying. He’s just more capable of putting things together. I think he has more awareness, which comes with experience, which comes with all the analysis that has been going on during the winter. So we see a stronger Oscar, like we see, as usual, a very strong Lando.

“But for me, again coming back to the competitiveness of McLaren, what I see – and I still look at quite a lot of telemetry myself – is two drivers that push each other and pick from each other. If you see Free Practice 1, they’re almost complementary as to where they go fast and slow. So they can see quite a lot of opportunities.

“And then I see the synergy. And the synergy means an elevation of the game. So for me, if anything, that’s what I see has mostly changed compared to the past.

“We can see it as car performance, but for me it’s a combination of car performance and what the drivers are able to achieve, elevating their own games.”