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The 2026 Dutch Grand Prix delivered a second consecutive win for Lando Norris and McLaren, following their earlier triumph in Hungary. In doing so, the reigning world champion became the first non-Mercedes driver to win two Grands Prix this season. Considering that across the previous 10 races Norris had finished in the top three in full-distance events only twice, this current run stands out and points to McLaren having made a significant step forward recently.

That said, both victories came at high-downforce circuits featuring slower-speed corners, while several of the upcoming tracks are defined by long straights and faster turns. Even so, the recent results mark clear progress, underlining a sequence of successful aerodynamic upgrades and a growing understanding of how to get more from the Mercedes power unit. Norris himself is also a major part of the story, with the Briton showing exactly why he is a world champion. As has often been the case with drivers after winning the title, that achievement appears to have eased some pressure and added another layer of confidence to his driving.

At Zandvoort, Norris secured pole position but lost the lead to Kimi Antonelli at the second start. It would have been easy for frustration to creep in, particularly after putting in the effort to top qualifying. Instead, he took the long-view approach, sticking to a strategy that left him with slightly fresher tyres later in the race. That proved decisive, allowing him to overtake Antonelli with a sharp and opportunistic move when both were delayed behind Lewis Hamilton, who had still not made his pit stop. It was an excellent drive, and the fact that teammate Oscar Piastri could manage only P6 in the same car underlined that the Briton had extracted everything perfectly.

McLaren made changes to the car after Norris had finished third in Saturday’s sprint, where he had been passed by Charles Leclerc. However, team principal Andrea Stella said the key difference in the main race was Norris’s ability to get more from the hard compound than his rivals. “On the hard tyres, I think Lando had extra in terms of understanding how to use this compound,” he said. “We could see that this compound today was quite tricky. I think we have seen that with Oscar—very competitive first stint and very difficult second stint—and it was the same for Antonelli, for instance. So I think the tyres today, especially the hard compound, it had a lot to offer, but it was not easy to go and get it.”

Stella’s view was that Norris is consistently especially strong when grip is low, and in this case, with a tyre that was not easy to bring into the right operating window. “I think this is his natural ground, in terms of conditions in which he can express his natural driving style. So I think we have improved the car, and we have improved the exploitation from a driving point of view or tyre understanding. But the fact that we used the harder compound today, I think, was a bit of an advantage, especially on Lando's side.”

There is also the broader context to consider: that elevated confidence level mentioned earlier, which comes with success and with having fulfilled his life’s ambition last season. “I think Lando is driving and operating at very high level, in [the] absolute sense, in relation to being F1 world champion,” Stella noted. “I think he is driving at the level of a world champion. And like I always say, for Lando, what I like the most of his journey in F1 is that he keeps improving. So it's almost like I see Lando stronger and stronger race by race, because I think this weekend was nowhere near a weekend in which we could take fighting for the victory for granted, especially after having seen the performance in the sprint.”

Stella is always effective when breaking down technical matters, but he is equally strong on the human side, which is one reason he works so well with his drivers. Expanding on where he has noticed a change in Norris, he pointed to the way the Englishman now chooses his moments more wisely.

“I would say that, definitely, he is now expressing a higher level of assertiveness as he drives,” he said. “The manoeuvre to pass Antonelli today, I think, is a really good demonstration of that. He is demonstrating more self-confidence, and the 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, 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. It's this confidence in your means, in your strength, that I quite like. Which means that sometimes, you are actually the one backing off when the situation becomes too risky.”

Stella pointed to the way Norris approached both Budapest and Zandvoort as ideal examples. “We need to remember that in both [of the] last couple of races that he won, he didn't defend the pole position. He was actually second at the end of the first lap, but I did not hear or perceive any decay in his confidence as to the fact that he was fast. And he was just preparing his opportunity to then cash in on his competitiveness,” Stella said. “So I think assertiveness and confidence are probably the two characteristics that he has improved the most, from a non-technical, non-operational point of view.”

After victories in Hungary and the Netherlands, the obvious question is whether Norris and McLaren can carry that momentum to other types of circuits. The next round at Monza will provide a very different challenge, making it an important test. If McLaren can be competitive in Italy and take the fight to Mercedes, then the MCL40 may have the capability to challenge the other leading teams for victories at all kinds of venues.

“If we think the demand of Zandvoort and Hungary, and then we think about the demand of Monza, we are in a completely different regime,” Stella said when asked whether the team could sustain its winning run. “If we can confirm our improvements in Monza, then I would say that the answer to your question is yes—we can look with some optimism [at] the reminder of the season.”

But, he stressed, a number of things still need to fall into place. “First of all, we need to go to Monza and see that our car can express a good performance in the long straights. And we know that drag is not necessarily a point of strength of our car, for instance; there's a lot of braking, which is not necessarily a point of strength of our car.”

Following Zandvoort, Norris has climbed to fourth in the world championship standings, and although he remains a substantial 83 points behind leader Antonelli, Max Verstappen proved last year that anything can happen as the development race rises and falls. A couple more wins, along with a couple more difficult weekends for Mercedes, and Norris could begin to emerge as a real contender.