Lando Norris
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McLaren are on the back foot compared to Mercedes and Ferrari after the Australian Grand Prix, but Lando Norris discovered that even his errors are helping the team learn more about their new car and power unit.
The Australian Grand Prix saw McLaren begin their defence of both titles after a magnificent 2025 campaign.
Lando Norris knew it would be difficult to win back-to-back championships because of the regulation changes, while Oscar Piastri was hoping to put the disappointment of last season behind him in front of his home fans.
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Piastri’s crash on his warm-up lap meant the ‘Aussie Curse’ continued before he even got a chance to get to the grid, and Norris could only finish P5.
McLaren are unhappy with the information they’ve received from Mercedes about their new power unit, but Norris uncovered something about how the hybrid engine functions after making a mistake during the second part of Saturday’s qualifying session.
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Lando Norris got more ‘battery deployment’ after Australian Grand Prix qualifying error
Journalist Jon Noble was explaining what happened to McLaren and Norris on The Race F1 Podcast.
He said: “There was an interesting anecdote I found out tonight about part of the journey that McLaren are going on, both the drivers and the teams on understanding deployment and the complexities and sensitivities of it, is I think it was one of Lando’s runs in Q2 where he had a bit of a moment coming out of turn two, lifted off to save it, but then unbeknownst to him, lifting off, switched on the MGU-K gave him a bit more battery deployment.
“And then, because of the way the whole system worked, he arrived at the next section with a bit more power than anticipated.
“So these are the weird quirks and sensitivities of deployment that drivers are trying to get their heads around. And it just shows that there’s still so much to learn and so much weirdness going on to extract everything.
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“I think the pure thing is that Mercedes have optimised everything, have absolutely nailed the qualifying setup. As James Vowles said, they were kind of caught a bit on the back foot by what Mercedes had done.
“McLaren are trying to dig deeper and get to it all, but at the moment, Mercedes have got a perfect deployment for qualifying, but probably can’t unleash that in the race because they’re more at the whim of what other cars are doing.”
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Charles Leclerc and Lando Norris agree on ‘artificial’ new Formula 1 regulations
Norris qualified sixth and finished fifth in Melbourne, but with Piastri not starting the race and Isack Hadjar retiring with a mechanical issue, he actually went backwards.
The British driver was 51 seconds behind race winner George Russell, and while he managed to fend off Max Verstappen in the final stint, the Dutchman started 20th and shouldn’t have even been on Norris’ radar.
After the race, Norris and Leclerc were critical of F1’s new ‘artificial’ racing, with overtaking mainly determined by battery levels and many drivers struggling to hold onto any positions they gained.
The idea that drivers need to lift and coast in order to go faster is very counterintuitive and, for some drivers, such as Norris and Verstappen, against what Formula 1 is supposed to be.
McLaren are still leading the way in some areas, but can’t currently compete with some of the factory teams on the grid.
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