Overview
- Lando Norris said on Friday that his defence of the drivers' championship feels “pretty impossible” after a run of mechanical problems that have halted his season momentum.
- The MCL40 has suffered multiple power‑unit failures this year, including a DNS in China and race retirements in Canada and Monaco that teams and reporters linked to Mercedes engine issues.
- McLaren and Norris say the faults have been varied rather than a single repeating defect, and the team is carrying out diagnostics and implementing fixes while noting pockets of strong pace at some circuits.
- Current F1 rules limit the number of power‑unit elements a driver may use without penalty, and Norris warned that his depleted allocation could soon force grid penalties that would further harm race results.
- Norris sits sixth in the standings and is 98 points behind leader Kimi Antonelli, a gap that makes a title comeback difficult now but leaves room for race wins if McLaren solves the reliability problems.