McLaren boss Andrea Stella says Lando Norris is ‘driving like a world champion’

The 26-year-old produced a superb drive to overhaul championship leader Kimi Antonelli at the Dutch Grand Prix, making it back-to-back wins as he bids to ignite his title defence.

Norris’ victory in Budapest before the summer break was his first of the season, as McLaren have struggled to match Mercedes and Ferrari under Formula One’s new 2026 regulations.

But Norris, who remains a hefty 83 points adrift of Antonelli, declared following his victory in Zandvoort that he believes he is performing better than every other driver – and Stella sees his confidence.

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“I think he’s driving at the level of a world champion,” team principal Stella said. “It’s almost like I see Lando stronger and stronger race by race.

“Lando is capable of maximising the performance in qualifying trim. And then I think when you have conditions in which the car slides in the race, there’s not much grip, then I think he’s the master in these kind of conditions.”

Norris started from pole in Zandvoort but, having survived the first lights out, he was undone by Antonelli at the second following a red flag for Max Verstappen’s huge crash in front of his fervent home support.

But the McLaren man remained in touch, allowing his team to pit him later before he reeled the Italian in on fresher tyres.

Stella was not concerned by the initial setback, believing that Norris has found a level of belief that enables him to play the long game.

“I would say that definitely he is now expressing a higher level of assertiveness,” he added.

“You know the manoeuvre to pass Antonelli today I think is a really good demonstration of that.

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“He is demonstrating a higher level of self-confidence and, this is interesting and I quite like it, the self-confidence sometimes is not demonstrated by being the most aggressive.

“Sometimes you are self-confident when you think like: ‘You know what, I’m not going to have a fight now because I may lose in this fight, it’s a very long race, see you at the end of the race’.”

McLaren have emerged as a genuine race-winning threat again and Norris is starting to edge back into the championship conversation.

Mercedes duo Antonelli and George Russell – who sits 59 points back alongside Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton – declared McLaren as the new team to beat.

Silver Arrows boss Toto Wolff acknowledges McLaren’s progress having made significant upgrades to their car.

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Mercedes are yet to bring their latest package of development and Wolff is hopeful that his team will have more chips to cash in come the back end of the season, under the sport’s cost-cap.

“We haven’t got the money to put developments on the car,” Wolff said. “We are trying to evenly split that through the season, optimising the championship points.

“It is a development race. The ride has been a bit tougher than the beginning of the year.

“You will see towards the end of the season whether they (McLaren and Ferrari) are going to be able to bring as much to the car as they are now.”