World Champion and McLaren driver Lando Norris goes into the 2026 F1 Belgian GP weekend knowing he will drop 10 spots on the grid for Sunday’s race. The team confirmed earlier Thursday he will receive the updated power electronics unit from Mercedes as the German manufacturer has been tackling its unreliability issues.
The Brit is currently 5th in points, trailing championship leader Kimi Antonelli by 82. Norris finished 4th at Silverstone. Despite big struggles with the car and pace, he kept it clean and delivered a strong result.
However, going into round 10, the 26-year-old faces an uphill challenge to be near the top 5 come the end of Sunday’s Belgian GP; a series of failures throughout the 2026 F1 season has damaged Lando Norris’ component pool.
He is not a stranger to a big comeback. Having got knocked out in Q1 at the 2024 Azerbaijan GP, the 11-time race winner stormed through to P4 on race day.
There will be five straight mode zones at Spa this weekend. With so much time at full throttle in Sectors 1 and 3, and the fact there will be a lack of energy before the end of the Kemmel straight, yo-yo racing is expected once again this year.
Lando Norris confident of a good comeback in 2026 F1 Belgian GP
Speaking in a print media session on Thursday, the 2025 F1 World Champion looked ahead to the race knowing the challenge he is up against on Sunday.
As the top four teams hold a sizable advantage over the midfield, although Racing Bulls have been really impressive recently, a P7 looks the most likely result without attrition at the front as Isack Hadjar is set to start at the back.
“We’ll have to wait and see how the overtaking is.
“Most people would deploy basically the whole battery down to turn five, and you go from pretty much 100% battery to zero, so there’s not much more use for battery.
“So we’ll have to wait and see. I mean, I think comparing to some of our competitors, we probably have a small straight-line speed advantage, comparing to the people a little bit further back. So I think comparing to them, we should have a good chance.
“But to just overtake in general, I think, could be pretty difficult here. But the slipstream is pretty big, and there’s still a few straights, but there’s no straight-line mode. Therefore, the slipstream is pretty large, and you can gain a good amount from that.
“I don’t know all the answers yet, but we know it’s better than Zandvoort and better than Hungary [to be] taking penalties.
“I hope so; I hope it’s not the end of my weekend before it has started. I’m still confident we can have a good weekend, so we’ll wait and see.”
McLaren statement on the penalty for Lando Norris
“McLaren Mastercard Formula 1 Team will fit car Number 1 with a fourth power electronics this weekend in Spa, exceeding our permitted number of allocated power electronics units and incurring a 10-place grid penalty.
“Car Number 1’s first power electronics unit suffered a terminal issue in China, which meant Lando was unable to start the race. Lando’s second power electronics unit, fitted in Japan, needed to be withdrawn for remedial work after suffering issues in Free Practice, which necessitated moving to a third and final power electronics unit within the permitted allocation. While the second power electronics unit was able to be repaired after the Japanese Grand Prix, it suffered a terminal issue in FP2 in Monaco, and was withdrawn from our allocation once again.
“While the power electronics unit we installed in Japan, and have used in every session since Miami, has worked reliably, Mercedes-AMG High Performance Powertrains has since introduced a series of reliability fixes to their new power electronics systems.
“However, in order to take advantage of these improvements, we must incur a 10-place grid penalty on Lando’s car in order to take a new unit. We have chosen to do this in Belgium, a circuit where overtaking is relatively more prevalent, as opposed to the following two events in Hungary and Zandvoort.
“We now plan to use this fourth power electronics unit for the remainder of the season, in order to maximise reliability while minimising sporting penalties on Lando.”
