While there are no guarantees it will happen as early as this weekend’s Hungarian GP, Lando Norris is backing McLaren’s capability to win races during the 2026 Formula 1 season. Heading into the action at the Hungaroring, the defending World Champion tagged Mercedes and particularly Ferrari as race favorites, given that the track layout presents vastly different characteristics compared to Spa-Francorchamps.

Plagued by nagging reliability issues throughout the opening rounds of the year, the Brit was unable to extract the full potential of the MCL40. However, the situation appears to have made significant headway following the introduction of a new power unit at the Belgian GP—boosting the papaya squad’s chances of giving top rivals a serious run for their money from here on out.

Looking at recent track history, McLaren has plenty of reason for optimism in Budapest: the team secured dominant 1-2 finishes here in both 2024 and 2025. Race winner at this venue last year, Norris evaluated the car’s progression over recent weeks and, while accepting that progress in F1 takes time, expressed firm belief that the team is drawing ever closer to victory contention.

“I don’t think it’s an overnight fix. It’s not like everything suddenly becomes perfect out of nowhere. It still takes time, and there’s no silver bullet right now. Even so, I keep believing we can win races this year,” he stated in an interview with F1TV.

“With a better car and by ironing out some of the issues we currently face, we can be competitive,” he continued, looking ahead to this weekend’s event. “It’s a short track. But I also expect Ferrari to be very, very quick, just like Mercedes. Ferrari will probably be the team to beat. We’ll see,” he cautioned.

“After all, Charles [Leclerc] took pole here last year, not McLaren. First, we need to ensure the upgrade works as intended, and then see if we can fight at the front,” he noted. Turning to the team’s upgrade package—which includes their own iteration of the Macarena rear wing—Norris was asked about his expectations for the revised car.

F1 2026, SPA-FRANCORCHAMPS, CORRIDA, MCLAREN, LANDO NORRIS
Lando Norris remains confident in McLaren’s potential to win races in 2026 (Photo: McLaren)

“Simply put, I hope the car delivers more grip and better lap times. So, first we wait and see. The goal is for this upgrade to help us unlock more performance and mitigate some of the balance issues we’re dealing with—or at least make them less pronounced,” he declared.

“I’m confident we can still be fast. There have been several races this year where we showed strong potential. Spa was one of the first, along with Miami, where we looked genuinely competitive. In fact, our race pace was very strong, even compared to the front-runners—or rather, the fastest cars out there. Where we are still clearly trailing behind is in qualifying,” he assessed.

“There’s zero chance of us magically finding four or five tenths in qualifying alone. So I think there are still areas to improve on both sides, but I certainly hope this update gives us a nice little step forward,” Norris concluded.

Formula 1 returns July 24–26 in Budapest, host of the Hungarian GP, Round 11 of the 2026 season.

F1 Hungarian GP: when to watch in US ET, London (UK), New Delhi (India), Shanghai (China) and Sydney (Australia)

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