What is mentioned there by lowerlaptime is something I had noticed as well. I believe it to be a very peculiar bit of Lando's driving style (which took a long time for him to fix this year) and McLaren cars being somewhat weird to handle for a long time too, so Lando was used to it. I think the MCL39 has been the first "conventional-feeling" fast car McLaren has produced in a very long time. I have made this point before, and of course you have to be a bit careful with extrapolations, but my theory is that Lando Norris has a very similar style to Fernando Alonso. Or at least, they prefer having cars that behave similarly, because I think Alonso is a far more adaptable driver, perhaps amongst the best of the last 20 years in that regard. But Alonso might have influenced McLaren's design philosophy for years after his departure just because Lando preferred that feel too. We had a lot of complains from other drivers though. Carlos said the car feels weird to drive (although he could deal with it well enough), and Daniel Ricciardo absolutely hated it. Pretty much pushed him to retirement because he could not get to grips with it.
Now, why do I think Alonso influenced McLaren cars?
When Alonso joined McLaren, he was the de facto #1 driver for the team. Him and Jenson do tend to deal with understeer exceptionally well. Jenson in particular was quite impressive in making understeery cars go fast. When Jenson left in 2016, all feedback was coming from Fernando, who demanded certain things from the car. Now remember, Alonso won both his titles with Renaults that he drove in a really weird way (yanking full lock on corners to induce understeer). Of course, that sort of style is no longer possible with Pirelli tires, but you could get close to it. And in 2017, it was exactly like that.
This is what he had to say back then:
I feel really strong driving this year with these cars. I can do also my driving style, my quick input on the steering wheel on entries like in the old days. So I’m really enjoying, I feel very strong, I’m feeling the strongest here. But I don’t have the power. I have a lot of time.
2018 was more of the same and then Alonso retires, but the 2019 car is built entirely on his feedback. Essentially McLaren carried over their design philosophy, but tried to rectify some design blunders with the car. Lando Norris was fast with it from the get-go. He outqualified Carlos Sainz in his rookie season if I recall correctly. And I know, Carlos is not held to super high regard nowadays, but he is no slouch. A rookie beating him in qualifying H2H should have turned more heads than it did, but McLaren was irrelevant back then so not many people were paying attention.
Due to circumstances, the 2020 and 2021 cars were literally evolutions of each-other. So the weird trait of the car preferring this quick steering input persisted from 2019. But here is where it's a bit difficult to carry this theory over. Is it likely that they maintained the same trait going into 2022 on a completely different regulation set?
Honestly, I don't deem it unlikely. Lando was doing exceptionally well in 2021. That season actually increased his stock as a driver because he was really impressive. McLaren had no reason not to try and make cars feel good for Lando. So in my opinion, up until 2024, McLaren cars were "conventionally weird", but Lando could make them work. And I suspect, Alonso would have absolutely loved the 2024 McLaren too. In 2025, McLaren actually changed a lot mechanically about the car, even though in the surface it doesn't look it. The car didn't feel natural for Lando anymore. He was trying to extract laptime from it the same way he had done up until then, but it didn't work. And his really fast teammate finally got the chance to shine with a car that is fast and also doesn't have "peculiar" handling requirements.
