Lando Norris declared that ‘it still feels like a McLaren’ after driving the MCL40 for the first time at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya on Wednesday. The newly crowned world champion’s words will be concerning reading for the likes of Max Verstappen and George Russell, given the Woking-based team’s dominant 2025 season.

McLaren claimed their second successive Constructors’ Championship title at a canter last year, finishing the campaign 364 points ahead of second-placed Mercedes and winning 14 of the 24 Grands Prix on offer.

McLaren claimed their second successive Constructors’ Championship title at a canter last year, finishing the campaign 364 points ahead of second-placed Mercedes and winning 14 of the 24 Grands Prix on offer.

The speed of the MCL39 allowed Norris to win his maiden Drivers’ Championship title, despite a late-season surge from Verstappen that saw the Dutchman sweep the season-ending triple header and finish on the podium at each of the final 10 Grands Prix.

“This is still going to take a while,” the Bristol-born driver said when asked about the team’s new challenger. “The conditions here are quite different to what they’re going to be in Bahrain, what they’re going to be in Melbourne.

“It’s just trying to gather as much information, in every condition possible, whether it’s going to rain in the next couple of days or be dry or whatever, the more laps we can do, the better. So yeah, nice to be back. Different feelings, of course. It still feels like a McLaren, it still feels powerful, it still feels like a Formula 1 car, which is the most important thing.”

Looking at the new generation of cars in general, Norris noted the speed changes relative to the ground-effect cars, and spoke about the different challenges facing the drivers when it comes to extracting speed from the battery and engine.

“It’s a bit of a step slower in terms of cornering speeds,” he explained. “In terms of acceleration and straight-line speed, it probably feels quicker than it did last year. You get to 340, 350 [kph] quite a bit quicker than we did in previous years. It’s a bit more of a challenge in many places, which is a good thing.

“But then you have a bit more to understand, from the battery, the power unit. All of those things are, in some ways, more complicated and just different. And whenever something’s different, it always takes a bit of time to figure out the best way to look at it, to manage it, to use it, but that’s what these days are for.”

Norris was able to enjoy the novelty of his new number in his first testing outing, too. The Brit earned the right to deploy the No.1 on his McLaren car after beating Verstappen to the title last year.