McLaren favours Norris? The Brit is annoyed by controversial suggestion

13:05, 23 Jul

Updated: 15:26, 23 Jul

byNorberto Mujica

Lando Norris is the man in form at the moment having won two races on the trot, both times edging out teammate Oscar Piastri. However, is it he the one behind his own resurgence? Or is McLaren favouring the Brit?

Since the start of the 2025 season Lando Norris has been complaining about issues embedded into his MCL39.

Aside from the tricky nature of the cars of the current ground effect era, Norris' discomfort highlighted a 'numbness' at the front that prevented him from feeling the car's attitude fully.

Ahead of the Canadian Grand Prix McLaren's actions following team boss Andrea Stella's post Saudi Arabian Grand Prix revelation that the Woking-based team was indeed working on a fix for Norris' issue, were disclosed: A front suspension upgrade had been deployed.

Since then it has been made clear that said implemented update to the MCL39 was at the sole purpose of helping Norris come to terms with his car's handling.

The result? In Canada he recovered from a P7 qualifying position (vs the P2 of his teammate, ed.) to P5 whilst hunting down Piastri in the latter stages of the race which resulted in contact between the two and in the Brit's DNF.

Norris or McLaren's special treatment? Who's behind the Brit's title awakening?

However, since then Norris has been able to take home two Grand Prix wins in Austria and Silverstone. So, is it the man behind the wheel, or a preferential treatment by McLaren?

"It could be that it's helping me, and when I say helping, it's helping me by hundredths, thousandths, I don't know. It's impossible to numerically put a number on it."

"It's something the team believed might give me more feeling, and I just roll with that," Norris added.

"I believe. My faith in the team and my belief in them thinking this might help. Not a guarantee, but it might. And that's it."

"Yes, I won two races since [and] I was real quick in Canada. [But] I'm not going to say it's down to that, obviously."

"I want to put more of it down to my hard work, my work I've been doing away from the track, with my team, with many people that I have around me. I put it way more down to that than some alterations on the suspension."

Following his back-to-back wins at Austria and Great Britan, Norris now trails teammate Piastri by 8 points, who in turn leads Max Verstappen in P3 by 69.