A tough weekend in Malaysia left McLaren struggling for pace, with Lando Norris ending up just sixth on the grid for the Formula 1 Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia. The defending champion finished six tenths behind Max Verstappen of Red Bull at Sepang, clocking a 1m35.757s that put him a mere 0.005s ahead of team-mate Oscar Piastri in seventh. Norris admitted his deficit originated from a lack of top-end speed along the long straights, which he revealed stems from McLaren failing to fully optimise its Mercedes power unit.
Lando Norris, McLaren
When asked if he was slower on the straights due to an ongoing power unit problem, Lando Norris simply replied yes. The issue had initially hampered McLaren at the dawn of the 2026 regulations due to customer teams lacking pre-existing knowledge of the highly complex engines. Although the reigning champions made a step forward in Spa back in July with updated parts, Sepang proved that further improvements are still urgently needed.
"I felt like my lap was very strong," said Lando Norris. "It's tough. I'm happy because I'm still struggling a lot in the straights everywhere. I'm just down on every single straight, so every time I get a good exit, I'm just slower at the end of the straight. It just hurts seeing this every single time. I should be higher up, not because I could have done a better job necessarily, but just because we're not getting everything out of the car that we need to. That doesn't only make my life tough today, but it also makes it tough for tomorrow."
Oscar Piastri, McLaren
The Malaysian weekend has been an uphill battle for McLaren, managing only 11th and 12th in FP1 and staying no higher than third in subsequent practice sessions. Oscar Piastri was therefore unsurprised by qualifying, noting that Sepang ruthlessly exposes the MCL40's weaknesses and keeping expectations modest for Sunday's grand prix.
"We looked reasonable in the long runs yesterday, but our runs were slightly shorter than everyone else," Oscar Piastri stated, as McLaren sat second on long-run averages behind Red Bull. "So for the amount of laps we did, it looks quite good, but not spectacular compared to everyone else. Obviously dirty air is a pretty big topic around here because there's a fair bit of high speed and very long corners so we'll have to wait and see. There's going to be a lot of strategy involved I think with the amount of deg there is, but I don't expect it to be a wildly different picture tomorrow."
Lando Norris currently sits 4th in the drivers' championship standings with 186 points.
Source: Motorsport
