Why Norris is now ready for his final exam

The Shanghai International Circuit, 20 March 2025, 2.12pm: “Maybe he was joking?”

That was Max Verstappen, incredulous that Lando Norris could have uttered a public complaint about the handling of his dominant McLaren Formula 1 car.

The Jeddah Corniche Circuit, 8 March 2024, 10.46pm: “Max!?”

And that was Norris, stunned that a Red Bull driver could have any complaint about the ride quality of their car, dominant at the time, at that fearsomely fast street track.

The two scenes handily illustrate the turnaround in the fortunes of these two still-friendly F1 rivals. Where Verstappen had entered 2024 as the favourite to seal last year’s world title, now Norris holds the tag. There are key differences, of course, but that’s exactly why we’ve posed the question we have on the cover of the May issue of Autosport magazine: Is Norris going to be the 2025 world champion?

Succeeding in this quest would make Norris the title successor to Verstappen – the usurper tale woven through F1 history. It’s an elite club that 25-year-old Norris is trying to join. But he’s certainly got the swagger…

Off-track, Norris doesn’t lack confidence at the highest level of motorsport and the many trappings it provides. But his standing in the F1 paddock is a far cry from the arrogance our description might imply – and rightly so. Norris is a fierce self-critic. His verbal flagellation following every small error across the past few years is often tough to take in, such is its extent. But to mistake such criticism for weakness is to misunderstand Norris. His intense honesty is his strength.

And now that he’s started an F1 campaign as the favourite for the first time following those four breakthrough wins in 2024, we’re keen to hear how the man himself feels about the very positive change to his circumstances, which he shares with McLaren, for this season.

A relaxed-looking Norris acknowledges the pressure he is under but reckons he’s got pretty good at shrugging it off

Photo by: Mario Renzi / Formula 1 / Getty Images

To the Chinese Grand Prix, then – four days on from what is Norris’s most impressive F1 win, in the 2025 Australia season opener. In Melbourne, Norris saw off his home hero team-mate – Oscar Piastri – for the critical pole position.

He led through the early stages when Verstappen had slunk ahead of the second McLaren, absorbing the inevitably relentless pressure from the Dutchman until Red Bull’s car weakness forced a rare wet-weather crack for the world champion.

Then Piastri surged back, only to damage his tyres in the pursuit – rendering moot a minor McLaren team orders situation. Both McLarens were off in the gravel when the rain returned, but Norris held on just enough to keep the lead, then beat Verstappen home in a tense late shootout.

“I definitely have times when I’ve performed very well in certain areas better than others. I’ve never just been as all-rounded as I needed to be” Lando Norris

That pressure from Piastri, plus beating Verstappen in slippery circumstances where the four-time champion has few peers in the F1 pack, positions that as Norris’s best win yet. It even trumped leading from start to finish in Abu Dhabi last year ahead of the Ferrari of Carlos Sainz, to seal McLaren’s first constructors’ title in 26 years and deny the Italian team its first crown since 2008.

So, has Norris started 2025 driving better than he did at the end of 2024? Or was that just more of the brilliant same? “I think the majority of it is a continuation,” he replies while seated at a table in McLaren’s Shanghai hospitality unit, looking out on the venue’s giant paddock pond. Piastri is speaking to The Times on an adjacent table – Fleet Street’s interest a sure sign that McLaren is the story of the season so far.

“I feel like I drove some very good races last year,” Norris continues, in his charmingly rambling style. “But I was potentially a little bit more inconsistent. But, on the whole, I still drove a very good year last year. In terms of pace and stuff, it was always very strong.

“My biggest strength is kind of my qualifying pace and those kind of things. But I definitely have times when I’ve performed very well in certain areas better than others. I’ve never just been as all-rounded as I needed to be.

“I think what was a strong point from Australia was communication – strategy, awareness of the race, awareness of racing situations, tyre preservation. Just thoughts and processes of executing a good race. Everything was very much in control. And then dealing with the pressure and all those things – start, restarts, a lot of things to kind of all put together.

Strong communication – “thoughts and processes of executing a good race” – cited as key to victory in Australia

Photo by: Mark Thompson / Getty Images

“And I think at different moments last year, bits were good, but never kind of consistently all together enough. And this was all together.

“Really, I was quickest in [Melbourne] FP1 and quite easily could have been quickest in FP2 and FP3 if I’d just crossed the line. Pole, race win. So, for me, it was like a perfect weekend. Speaking with the team through the race and just being a bit more on it with those situations was an improvement.

“But probably the biggest thing is how relaxed I am. My level of focus and chillness is helping me, I think, a good amount. That I’m not stressing too much about things and I’m just focused doing the job I’ve got to do.”

This does jar with something Norris has always insisted: that he needs the pressure of a qualifying or race session to produce his best work behind the wheel. But, concurrently, it represents how McLaren’s improved car form can raise levels elsewhere within its team.

A theme of our time with Norris in China is how he organically touches on topics we wanted to discuss anyway. After all, even to those watching from half a world away, he looked supremely relaxed and confident through the chaos of the Melbourne event. It’s an assessment with which he agrees. “I think so,” Norris replies when asked whether he feels as chilled as he looks doing battle for F1’s biggest prize.

There were times during his long-shot chase of Verstappen’s 2024 crown when that different type of pressure seemed to seep into Norris’s persona. His lengthy answers became edgier. Then it was relief flooding through when Verstappen ended their title battle with that brilliant victory in the wet Brazil race, where - in contrast to his Melbourne might - Norris cracked.

This time, however, he appears to be taking it all in his stride. A consequence, no doubt, of McLaren’s 2024 title-challenging form actually being a year ahead of the team’s optimistic schedule to becoming a consistent F1 frontrunner.

“The thing is, I’m very aware of all of it,” says the 2016 McLaren Autosport BRDC Award winner. “I’m very aware of more eyes, more expectation, more nerves, more pressure. Am I more nervous? Probably.

Battles with Verstappen in 2023 pushed Norris to his very limit – and the lessons learned are invaluable

Photo by: Andy Hone / Getty Images

“Do I feel like there’s more pressure? Yes. Am I aware of all of these things? Yes. But I think the simple thing is: is it affecting me in any way, especially a bad way? I’d say no. It’s not like I don’t think of all of these things, it’s just I’m probably a bit better at dealing with all of it and trying to not think of it and almost not deal with it, is what I’m saying.

“I overthink and I think of a lot of different situations – whether they’re good or bad. Sometimes I just don’t need to. It’s a waste of energy and capacity thinking of things I don’t need to. So, now I just try to have the knowledge of how I can chill and know that when I’m going into my car, I’m going to go out and I’m just going to do a good job.

“I’ve done my work, I’ve done my revision – I’ve done my homework, let’s say. Now I just need to go out and do the exam. I don’t need to stress about, ‘Have I done enough, have I done this enough, have I done that enough, did I think of that?’ I’m just confident that I’ve done my work, now I can go out and drive. And I can also just enjoy the interim part. And, for me, the more relaxed I can be in any situation, the better I perform.”

“I’m still pushing for ‘I want a bit more of this and I want a bit more of that’. I’m just not fantasising about, ‘What if I had that?’” Lando Norris

Our Shanghai setting is revealing for Norris’s 2025 campaign. The point that had Verstappen so sceptical in the opening lines had been uttered just two hours earlier, when Norris claimed in the pre-event press conference that the McLaren MCL39 is “still extremely difficult to drive” and “doesn’t suit my driving style at all”.

What this means is the way Norris prefers a strong front end at corner entry, which gels with his high-energy driving style that loads up the front tyres and leaves him needing to hang onto the rear to maintain speed and critical tyre life. It’s a trait that requires considerable adaptation with the current ground-effect designs, but for the McLaren package it goes back further.

When Daniel Ricciardo raced for McLaren in 2021 and 2022, one of the most significant handling gripes the Australian had was a big struggle with stability on corner entry. And, while that was related to Ricciardo’s intense and specific preference for late braking, it shows that, while Norris doesn’t like all of McLaren’s car mannerisms, he has a history of dealing with them well.

The difference this time is that he’s stopped pestering McLaren to deliver his ideal front-end sensation on corner entry. It can’t, because the team’s aerodynamicists have identified how this might make the car more unstable in other areas – such as low-speed turns or in windy conditions.

“It’s not like just suddenly now I’ve thought of that and lent on that way,” Norris insists. “I’m just not fantasising about the idea of, ‘but if the car was way better here [he could do even better]’. I’m still pushing them for ‘I want a bit more of this and I want a bit more of that’. I’m just not fantasising about, ‘What if I had that?’

Fierce competitiveness between two top talents Piastri and Norris makes McLaren stronger as a team

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Getty Images

“At the end of the day, I’ve always known and always been more of, ‘I’ve just got to drive the car that I’ve been given’. And that’s not a bad thing, because that’s every driver’s job. It’s just to drive the car that they’re given.

“But it’s being more open to trying different driving styles and all those different things that I’ve not necessarily grown up doing. I’ve not grown up being the best at driving in certain ways. But over the last couple of years, I’ve found more ways to be able to adapt and change driving styles when I need to. And I think then that’s allowed me to be a better driver.”

Here we’ve handily arrived at another of our burning questions, to follow up on how Norris had insisted in the aftermath of his Melbourne win that “me and Oscar pushing each other in qualifying yesterday allowed us to get one and a half, one tenth more” and that “it’s not just about the car”.

This was to become the overriding theme of the Shanghai weekend, too. Piastri started by far the stronger McLaren driver, leading the way as the team’s sprint qualifying run plan contributed to Norris blowing what was set to be the pole lap that went to Lewis Hamilton.

Piastri then fought his way past Verstappen to finish second in Hamilton’s first race win for Ferrari, while Norris wallowed in the pack, lacking the pace to initially even fight the Aston Martin of Lance Stroll.

But, having rescued the final Shanghai point, Norris started to climb back to his team-mate’s level. Around mechanical balance adjustments such as anti-roll bar tweaks and other set-up changes that set his aerodynamic platform further towards the rear axle, Norris qualified third for the Chinese GP. Piastri took pole, with Mercedes driver George Russell in between the two McLarens.

The key to this gain – and how Norris made positive race progress that was good enough to pressure Piastri for the lead, before McLaren’s late brake problem called an early end to the chase – was how Norris learned from Piastri.

The Australian has a much smoother driving style; he’s rarely snapping at the wheel. At Shanghai, where the numerous long corners cause considerable tyre graining, Norris’s many more stabs at the wheel in loading the fronts meant Piastri “was having less graining than Lando”, according to McLaren team principal Andrea Stella.

Each McLaren driver admits to addressing their weaknesses by taking a direct lesson from the other

Photo by: Hector Retamal / AFP / Getty Images

He revealed that Norris “needed to pick up something from Oscar” in terms of adjusting to a smoother driving style in those challenging long corners on the Shanghai layout.

And this is how Norris explains that process – one that also works in reverse at every race across the McLaren garage. Piastri will even say there have already been moments where he’s “had to try and look at things from how Lando’s driven and apply them myself” when asked, following his Chinese GP victory, to describe how closely they’re working together.

“The thing is, every driver has strengths and weaknesses,” Norris begins. “And, really, the most simple way to explain it is that he does some things that I see on the data and I’m like, ‘Damn that’s pretty good’. And I try it and maybe the car performs better at doing that driving style or braking that way or accelerating that way or doing that line.

“We’re always trying to come up with another way to kind of push the boundary and come up with another way of driving that corner even quicker” Lando Norris

“So, it’s more that, when you’ve got someone who is pushing the limits so much, but is a different person, they can get the limit of the car in slightly different ways. And I think one thing is just acknowledging that. The second thing is being able to try it and do it yourself – and that’s a much harder thing to be able to do.

“I think that it takes a good driver to be able to do that. But we’re both able to do that. So, then we’re always trying to come up with another way to kind of push the boundary and come up with another way of driving that corner even quicker.

“You’re always trying to improve in certain corners that little bit more. But we always have the ability to recognise that, see it, and go out and do it. And sometimes it’s harder to do than others. Sometimes a slow-speed corner – because it’s a bit more technical – can be a bit trickier to adapt to that braking style that he’s doing or whatever. But pretty damn quickly you can go out and do it.

“When you’re kind of constantly trying to go, ‘OK, what can I do now that’s that bit more?’, 100% you get more out of each other as a package. And 100% you get more out of one very, very, very good driver with no good team-mate doing it our way, than you will just with one good driver.

“I also think that’s why we make a difference. Because I probably won’t be able to do it alone, Oscar wouldn’t be able to do it alone. We’d be able to fight Max alone, but you’re always going to be stronger as a team.”

Norris ably absorbed pressure from wet-weather maestro Verstappen in Melbourne season-opener

Photo by: Clive Rose / Getty Images

In China, Verstappen wasn’t the only driver wryly pondering McLaren’s strong start to the season. Russell had also playfully suggested that “their car is definitely capable of winning every race and their car should win every race, but I don’t think they will win every race this year”.

Russell had said (ultimately only slightly inaccurately, thanks to Sainz’s Singapore GP win) in the aftermath of the 2023 Bahrain season opener that Red Bull should “win every single race this season”, showing again how far things have swung for McLaren. But it also highlights the differences in the two predictions.

First, Verstappen’s pedigree is clear. Give him the best car and he will mercilessly deliver the title. For Norris, simply for his current status as championship hopeful, the same can’t be said. And then there is how, objectively speaking, the Briton makes more mistakes – however tiny – even with an excellent car. Norris would readily agree with such an assessment, and indeed, he will.

But, at the same time, Piastri’s high level means Norris is playing a different and much harder game to Verstappen, who for so long has enjoyed undisputed top dog status at Red Bull. Norris is right to say that this makes McLaren better than the rest, but it makes his 2025 title challenge harder.

So, as we gesture to “the man to your left”, who does Norris view as his closest title rival this term? Is it indeed Piastri? Or does what Verstappen produced in Australia prove that he can never be discounted, even as the chaser this time?

“Yeah, I mean, I would never doubt Max,” Norris replies. “But I think everyone probably expected a little bit more from Ferrari. I feel like they expected more from themselves. And I expect them to be competition. We had a very good weekend in Melbourne, but Max was still right on me. And that’s not just because he’s an incredible driver in those conditions – their car is still pretty damn good.

“You need both. And Red Bull have a pretty decent car and a very, very good driver. There’s no other way they’d be able to compete against us if that’s not the case. So, I think Red Bull and Max, we can never doubt them.

“As a team, probably a bit more Ferrari just because they’ve got two drivers up there consistently. And I mean, we’d expect Lewis to be up there a bit more consistently than [the now demoted Liam] Lawson, who is just more inexperienced. And the fact that the Red Bull just looks difficult for new guys to adapt to.

The rivalry remains friendly between the reigning world champion and 2025 title favourite Norris

Photo by: William West / AFP / Getty Images

“And of course, Oscar. Oscar is very, very quick and already has pushed me a lot over the last couple of years. But I’ve dealt with that very well and in a fine way. So, I’m not too worried, but I’m aware of how much of a threat he can be. At the same time, the more of a threat he is, the better it is for me in a way because I can learn from those things. And, if I’m a good driver, I learn from those things and I improve myself as a driver.

“So, yeah, probably still Red Bull and Max. But I honestly think some races Mercedes will win. I do think that some races Ferrari will win and some races Oscar will probably win. But I’m aware of that. It doesn’t make me stressed anymore, worried anymore, because at some point I’m not going to do a perfect quali lap and I’m going to make a mistake and those kind of things will happen. But none of that worries me. It’s just I’m still confident we can win the majority.”

Regarding Piastri, McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown insists later on during the Shanghai weekend that the 24-year-old is acting no differently behind the scenes now that the team is leading the F1 pack.

“He always comes very prepared,” Brown explains. “He’s got a very cool mindset – always. I think that’s one of the things that makes him so strong. Very impressed with Oscar. Have been from day one. Hence signing him up to a longer-term deal so we could have stability in our team and just let everyone focus on racing. I couldn’t be happier with my two drivers.”

Piastri’s new deal – which will run to at least the end of the 2028 season – was announced ahead of this year’s curtain raiser. It mirrors Norris’s own extension, signed ahead of last year’s campaign. With one title already secured in Abu Dhabi last year and the potential for more historic success this season, this pair have the promise to go down as McLaren legends.

But the 2025 season is also far too young to be called a two-horse race just yet. As Norris says, Verstappen can never be counted out, Ferrari and Mercedes have already shown the flashes Norris references, and the fallout from the FIA’s coming flexi-front-wing clampdown at June’s Spanish GP could significantly alter the pecking order anyway.

Yet if it does come down a battle between the McLaren drivers, Norris has a potentially key advantage. His younger team-mate is yet to encounter anything like the challenge Norris had in trying to catch Verstappen in 2024. And, for Norris, the beneficial experience actually started further back – in 2023, when McLaren really leapt up the pack from its long midfield malaise with its upgrade at that season’s Austrian GP.

This is why, for Norris, the key to winning the 2025 world title really comes down to that combination of his racing knowledge, gelled with the class-leading package that McLaren has now produced. “The better the car is in a way, the easier everything kind of gets,” Norris explains. “Because you can relax more, you can look after the tyres more. Because you’re doing that, you can also think of other things a bit more.

Norris, pictured here after seeing off home hero Piastri for pole position, describes the Melbourne weekend as “perfect”

Photo by: Getty Images

“When I was second to Max in like five races [in 2023], the capacity it took for me to perform at that level was almost more [than it is to succeed now in 2025]. Because to get so close to something but not be able to get it, made me work at probably the ultimate limit of what I could do. And that was just very difficult for me to think of everything else as well as what I probably needed to do.

“But it’s the way I had to work to get the most out of the car. I had to work at 100% car and probably 0% capacity for other things. When you have a solid, quick car you can work at 99% and then focus 1% of your attention on strategy, tyres, tyre saving – all those different types of things. So, 100% I acknowledge I’ve got the best car on the grid. Very happy that I say that because it’s been a while.

“I’m proud that we’ve got to that point as a team and I think we’re all proud that we can say that. But, like people have always said, ‘The driver can also make a difference’.

“100% I acknowledge I’ve got the best car on the grid. But, like people have always said, ‘The driver can also make a difference’” Lando Norris

“I wouldn’t be able to win without the best car. But the car needs to be within like 1%. It needs to be within that little bit that the driver can then make a difference. And that’s not a big difference. But like Max could have won in Australia and that’s not because the car’s shit and he’s just amazing – the car’s pretty damn good. And he’s also very good.

“It’s kind of that you need that little balance right at the end. That 1% the driver can add on to. I think it mainly goes back to the aspect of me and Oscar helping each other, and using each other, it’s an advantage. That we definitely get more out of one another than any guy on the grid can do alone.”

The early season form of the 2025 F1 campaign suggests that the intra-McLaren title battle will swing from race to race – even leaving aside Verstappen’s constant threat and the more fleeting competition from the Mercedes and Ferrari drivers.

But whereas in 2024 the question many a paddock observer posed was, ‘When will McLaren and Norris mess up?’, now it’s, ‘Why aren’t they?’ The answer, as Norris has made clear, is that they’ve worked together to produce F1’s best car and have learned how to properly win with it.

Throughout F1 history, that adds up to titles. No wonder Norris’s reply is absolute when we wish him good luck in his quest for the ultimate prize as it’s time to head out into the Shanghai night: “Don’t worry, I’m gonna do it…”

There’s a swagger about Norris, a man well at home in his environment and confident in his ability to deliver

Photo by: Bryn Lennon / Formula 1