Can Lando Norris defend his F1 title? Here’s what the Miami GP will tell us about McLaren’s chances

On the face of it, McLaren ’s latest example of sporting-corporate muscle-flexing seems a tad peculiar. Drifting away from the principles of their racing-mad founding father, quite what Bruce McLaren would have made of the papaya-clad outfit expanding into golf equipment – with Justin Rose their top-tier signing, posing alongside Lando Norris (himself a keen golfer) at a lavish Floridian launch on Wednesday – remains to be seen. Yet group CEO Zak Brown has overseen remarkable growth in the last half-dozen years.

In 2020, McLaren Racing were valued at £560m. Last September, Forbes estimated the team alone were worth approximately £4bn, behind only Mercedes and Ferrari in F1 terms. They have well over 50 sponsors, most adorned on the car of the reigning world champions.

And, despite a topsy-turvy start on the Formula 1 racetrack this season, they’re hungry for more. Lando Norris (far-left) poses with Justin Rose (centre-left), Ian Poulter (centre), Michelle Wie (centre-right) and Zak Brown at McLaren's golf launch event on Wednesday (Getty) "I think we can have a good season, even if we're not where we want to be right now,” Norris said, during the enforced spring break. “Although we haven't started the season where we want to be, we still want to push hard for the championship.

” Formula 1 returns this weekend in Miami after a five-week hiatus, following the cancellation of races in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, and to all intents and purposes, it feels like the 2026 campaign starts now. Tweaks to the regulations made in the break, primarily to promote flat-out driving in qualifying and reduce dramatic in-race closing speeds and the risk of massive crashes like Ollie Bearman’s in Japan , will debut in the cut-and-thrust world of a sprint weekend, in the fifth iteration of the temporary 19-turn street circuit, configured around the 60,000-capacity Hard Rock Stadium, which plays host to the paddock. Such are the new challenges and protocols, the only practice session of the weekend on Friday has been extended by half an hour.