Lando Norris has opened up on the changes that he made to overcome internal doubts and a troubled beginning to the campaign to claim the Formula 1 title in 2025.
Norris realised his childhood dream in Abu Dhabi as he secured the podium that he needed in the deciding round to achieve a coveted maiden Drivers’ Championship.
The Briton started the season on top in Australia, but his struggles to gel with McLaren’s MCL39 over a single lap consigned him to a six-race run without a single win.
Norris squandered vital points with several blunders in that period, which Oscar Piastri capitalised on to displace his team-mate as the lead McLaren in the standings.
But while he curbed Piastri’s momentum with three victories prior to the summer break, Norris dropped 34 points behind when he retired with an oil leak at Zandvoort.
However, unperturbed, Norris proceeded to outscore Piastri across the next six races to recapture the upper hand in the championship battle as his team-mate wilted.
Norris has revealed how mid-season additions to his backroom team held an integral role in dispelling any “doubts” that he harboured and his subsequent turnaround.
“I’ve had a lot of tough moments in the beginning of the season. I had great moments – winning the first race in Australia certainly gave me a big boost,” he told media including Motorsport Week.
“But quite quickly, I had not the best run of results, and Oscar did an incredible job, [he] was consistently ahead of me.
“It got tricky at times. I think at the end of the day, it shows that consistency over a year is what helps achieve what we’ve achieved today.
“But those tricky moments, like everyone says, you’ve got to learn from them, acknowledge them, understand them.
“I’ve had to go above and beyond in terms of expanding my group, the people I work with on the track, and more so off the track.
“The amount of people that I have in my corner – not from McLaren but externally: my friends, my family, my coaches, people that help me think in better ways and perform in better ways.
“So many people allowed me to go out and be more calm and almost try and not acknowledge the pressure or just perform under pressure and have the second half of the season that I had.
“If I look back on it, my first half of the season – not the most impressive. Certainly, times I made some mistakes, made some bad judgments. I made my errors, as I’m sure every driver would admit to.
“But how I managed to turn all of that and have the second half of the season that I had is what makes me very proud – that I’ve been able to prove myself wrong.
“There were doubts I had in the beginning of the year, and I proved myself wrong. And that’s something that makes me very happy.”
How Norris mounted championship comeback
Norris explained that he elected to take action once he came to the realisation in his own head that the issues derailing his title charge were too repetitive to be a blip.
“Honestly, I can’t remember the exact time things started,” he recalled.
“Certainly levelled up a lot more through the halfway point – around Zandvoort time – but it definitely started prior to that.
“It started after I had that kind of bad run in race two, three, four, five, six, that kind of area. Or certainly when it was like, ‘Alright, my way is not working. I’ve got to understand things differently. I’ve got to speak to more people. I’ve got to understand what I’m thinking, why I’m thinking it. Why am I doing this? Why am I getting tense in qualifying? Why am I making the decisions that I’m making?’ Whatever it may be.
“Certainly, the bad run of results and lack of performance – not speed, because I think the speed’s always there – but lack of putting things together when I had the capability of putting things together, allowed or opened up the doors to go and understand: ‘Okay, I need to do more than just try again next weekend. I need to try and understand things on a deeper level.’
“That opened up understanding myself more, understanding things more at a championship level. That’s the level I’ve got to be at. They are World Champions.
“And yes, certainly the struggles turned into strength.
“So I would say, if I didn’t have those struggles at the beginning and then had the weakness at the end, would I have caught on to those things as quickly? Probably not.
“So I was thankful that I had some of the tough moments early on and managed to turn them around.
“When I got in that kind of good rhythm in the last three months, almost when there’s been more pressure than ever, was almost when I felt most comfortable and most confident into qualifying, you know, I could go from chatting to my engineers and having a fun time with my mechanics to going out and getting pole a few minutes later. So, yeah, the struggle was at the beginning really allowed me to unlock my potential later on.”
READ MORE – Lando Norris reveals proudest aspect about maiden F1 title
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