Team principal Andrea Stella said he believed Norris was driving better than ever.
“Lando is driving and operating at a very high level,” Stella said. “He’s driving at the level of a world champion.
“What I like the most of his journey in Formula 1 is that he keeps improving.
“After the start of the 2025 season, something clicked, which is not only a single click, but it’s a way of working with Lando, for Lando, and that we are adopting also on Oscar’s side now in particular.
“This approach has led Lando to continuous improvements.
“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 fight for the victory for granted, especially after having seen the performance in the sprint (in which Norris was passed by Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc and finished third).
“But we invested in trying to understand where was the opportunity from a tyre exploitation point of view and car improvement.
“And then when you have conditions in which the car slides in the race, there’s not much grip, then I think he is the master in these kind of conditions.”
A couple of months ago, before the British Grand Prix, and before McLaren had won a race this season, Norris admitted in an interview with BBC Sport “a little bit” of frustration at not being able to defend the title he won last year.
So it’s perhaps no surprise that now he appears to have at least an outside chance of making a fist of it, he is not making any presumptions.
“One race at a time,” he said. “I know a lot of people say it now, but it’s the truth of it. There’s no point thinking that far ahead.
“Obviously, two great weekends, but there’s still plenty of things we can do better, and we need to do better if we want to fight for a championship.
“It’s still harder than I would like, and I don’t want a bigger gap, so we have to keep working hard. There’s still plenty of races, plenty of opportunity for everyone. So, keep my head down, keep working, and they’ll keep coming.”
McLaren’s progress has come in the context of stagnation at Mercedes, whose lack of an upgrade to their car since Canada in May has led to them being caught by McLaren and Ferrari, a situation that has raised eyebrows among rival teams.
The next Mercedes upgrade is not due until the Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia in four races’ time.
For Antonelli – who also faces a grid penalty at his home race in Italy next time out because he needs to take a new engine that exceeds his allowance as a consequence of early-season reliability problems – it cannot come soon enough.
“Now as a team we need to find a little bit of time because McLaren have done a huge step,” he said.
“So for sure, in this race, it’s going to be more difficult, it’s going to be challenging, but we’re ready to do our best and to maximise every opportunity.
“And then hopefully it’s going to be our turn to bring the package that’s going to give us a little bit of the upper hand again.”
