Lando Norris: McLaren driver unsure if Sao Paulo Grand Prix upgrades will improve 'horrible' McLaren car

McLaren have not been in contention for victory in recent races, which Norris puts down to the team being outdeveloped by Mercedes, Red Bull and Ferrari.

With the aim of getting back to the front, McLaren have a new front wing, rear wing and floor components for Brazil as they look to hold onto third in the Constructors' Championship.

"They [the upgrades] are just to add performance," said Norris last weekend in Mexico.

"I don't think it will make it any easier [to drive]. Maybe there's a chance it makes it harder. For this you always leave it to the experts. I give my feedback, I say what I want, what's difficult.

"The engineers and aerodynamicists are the clever ones who turn my comments into lap time. They are doing a good job and continuing to work hard."

Norris won back-to-back races either side of the summer break in Budapest and Zandvoort, and should have won the Spanish Grand Prix in Madrid, if not for an unfortunate Virtual Safety Car.

McLaren introduced upgrades to the car in Baku in September and have not been at the sharp end of the grid since that event.

Norris, who is sixth in the F1 Drivers' Championship, says the car has "got better every time we brought upgrades" but is also unhappy with the MCL40's handling.

"The car has been horrible, difficult to drive the whole season. Just other teams have brought a lot more upgrades since and improved a lot more than what we have - nothing more than that," he said.

"The team are still doing a good job, considering we were 1.5 to one second off at the beginning of the year. The fact we won almost three races was a pretty sizeable achievement in itself, so we have had a pretty good year, if you want to look at it from that perspective.

"Of course we hold ourselves to a very high level and want to win everything we can. We started a long way behind at the beginning of the season and did a good job to catch up, better than the majority of any other team on the grid.

"Normally it's me looking at it from a negative way, but now I'm looking at it from a positive way. We want more, especially when we had a taste of success in the middle of the year."

McLaren have won the last two Constructors' Championships but are set to lose that mantle to Mercedes, who could secure that title this Sunday if they outscore Ferrari by at least three points.

Norris has been unable to put up a serious defence to his own drivers' crown and revealed McLaren may have suffered by putting more resource into last year's car, while other teams focused on the new 2026 regulations.

"I certainly wouldn't put this year at all in the direction of saying it's a failure. I think that's completely the wrong mindset to have, especially when we had to work so much on last year to win a world championship," he said.

"We knew we were going to pay the price, especially when you've got a bigger regulation change than ever in Formula 1. When you want to be able to drop everything and spend more time on something, it was a time we couldn't do that, because we had a Constructors and Drivers' Championship to win, so I'm more than happy that that was the sacrifice we took this year."

Norris suggested McLaren were disadvantaged earlier this year as they are a customer team to Mercedes and the complexity of the new power units meant the engine manufacturers benefitted the likes of Mercedes, Red Bull and Ferrari who all have their own power units.

"The first races were very tough. As a customer team to Mercedes, that obviously made things much tougher, so even if we had the same car, they would have beaten us," he said.

"You've got all these little things that add up to make it a tougher season than ideal. I think what made it tough was the fact we won races this season, which already I thought was a huge achievement in itself, to go from where we were at the beginning of the season to winning two, almost three races. I see that as a pretty huge success from where we were.

"What's hurt is the fact we've kind of drifted away from that, and more just other teams have brought big upgrades and improved in better ways than what we have over the last couple of months.

Thursday November 5 5pm: Drivers' Press Conference 8pm: Paddock Uncut

Friday November 6 3pm: Sao Paulo Grand Prix Practice One (session starts at 3.30pm)* 5.30pm: Team Bosses' Press Conference 6.45pm: Sao Paulo Grand Prix Practice Two (session starts at 7pm) 8.15pm: The F1 Show

Saturday November 7 2.15pm: Sao Paulo Grand Prix Practice Three (session starts at 2.30pm)* 5pm: Sao Paulo Grand Prix Qualifying build-up 6pm: SAO PAULO GRAND PRIX QUALIFYING 8pm: Ted's Qualifying Notebook

Sunday November 8 3.30pm: Grand Prix Sunday: Sao Paulo GP build-up 5pm: THE SAO PAULO GRAND PRIX* 7pm: Chequered Flag: Sao Paulo City GP reaction 8pm: Ted's Notebook

Formula 1 heads to Brazil for the final leg of the triple header with the Sao Paulo Grand Prix this weekend, live on Sky Sports F1. Stream Sky Sports with NOW