Lando Norris admitted he remains frustrated with his McLaren despite improvements across Friday practice at the 2026 F1 Belgian GP, as issues continued to hamper the team’s performance around Spa-Francorchamps.
While McLaren introduced a revised rear wing package and showed encouraging pace throughout FP1 and FP2, Norris insisted there is still significant work to do before the competitive sessions begin.
Norris sees progress but wants more
Norris endured a difficult start to the weekend and did not hide his feelings about the opening practice session when he was 8th, saying: “FP1, not great, to be honest.”
However, the McLaren driver felt the team moved in the right direction during FP2, even if the car remains far from where he wants it.
Norris continued: “FP2, a little bit happier. I’m still not very happy with the car; it’s still very, very difficult to drive, but we seemed a bit closer.”
Despite the improvements, Norris refused to get carried away by McLaren’s position on the timesheets at the 2026 F1 Belgian GP. He pointed out that the team often looks strong on Fridays before rivals reveal more pace later in the weekend.
He said: “But we’re always pretty close on Friday in free practice. I think we just show more pace than some of our competitors.
“But I think from as far as we can see, we made some improvements with the car from FP1 to FP2.”
Norris added: “We seem relatively competitive, but yeah, we’re certainly not getting ahead of ourselves. I think we shouldn’t expect anything differently from normal.”
Deployment problems
Although the car felt better in FP2, Norris repeatedly returned to one major concern: deployment. The British driver explained that McLaren is losing performance on virtually every straight at Spa because of how bad the clipping is.
“Yeah, I mean, there’s just a lack of deployment everywhere. Every single straight, we lack deployment, to be honest. I think the worst one is through Blanchimont.”
Later, Norris revealed just how dramatic the loss can be once the battery energy is depleted.
“We go from almost 320 to 270, because we just have no battery left. So, every single straight, we’re clipping.”
With Spa heavily rewarding straight-line efficiency, solving that problem could prove critical before qualifying.
Houldey encouraged by rear wing upgrade
Away from Norris’ frustrations, McLaren Technical Director Neil Houldey took positives from Friday’s running after the team successfully evaluated a new rear wing package. McLaren initially fitted the update to one car during FP1 before rolling it out to both cars in FP2.
Houldey said: “Both cars in FP2 so yeah we are happy that it offered the performance that we thought it did and we’ve taken that forward into P2 and obviously for the sessions moving forward. So pleased with that upgrade certainly, small stuff but obviously it all counts.”
Houldey also felt Norris extracted almost everything available from the car across Friday practice.
“Yeah I think Lando got the most out of the car as it was in that session. So I don’t think we can say that second is the position we’re truly in,” he continued.
Instead, McLaren believes further gains remain available through both set-up changes and deployment optimisation. Nevertheless, he was encouraged by where McLaren sits after the opening day.
“I think we’ve got opportunities in deployment, I think everyone’s got opportunities in working out what optimal deployment is for the rest of the weekend. But no pleased that we’re there or thereabouts in P1, P2 and therefore hopefully take that through to qualifying.”
More performance to unlock overnight
Houldey expects McLaren’s engineers to spend much of Friday evening searching for extra performance before the next on-track session.
“I think from a set-up perspective certainly Lando’s side of the garage are pretty happy, Oscar’s side a little bit less time to optimise the car so I think there’s probably something there.”
He also confirmed deployment analysis will be a major focus.
“And deployment we just need to look over and spend a lot of time overnight looking at where the opportunities are, simulating a few different things and coming up with what we think is best for P3.
“We’ve tried quite a lot of different options in P1, P2, we’ve seen a lot of teams try a few different options and the optimum’s out there somewhere we just haven’t found it yet.”
How the McLaren drivers fared on Friday
McLaren finished Friday’s running at the 2026 F1 Belgian GP in a relatively strong position. Norris emerged as the team’s leading driver after extracting the maximum from the package despite his concerns over balance and deployment. Meanwhile, Oscar Piastri spent much of FP1 and FP2 working through set-up changes and helping evaluate the revised rear wing. With the update performing as expected and both drivers still chasing improvements, McLaren heads into the remainder of the Spa weekend believing there is more pace to unlock.
