McLaren driver Lando Norris has revealed that he has given up alcohol to boost his hopes of winning the F1 2025 World Championship.

It comes almost a year after he suffered a facial injury while partying in the Dutch capital of Amsterdam, a week before taking his maiden F1 victory at the Miami Grand Prix.

Lando Norris hasn’t ‘had a single drink’ with all eyes on F1 2025 title

After starting the season with a fine victory in Australia, Norris’s title challenge has stalled alarmingly over recent weeks with McLaren team-mate Oscar Piastri surging into the lead of the Drivers’ standings by winning three of the last four races.

Norris endured a challenging weekend at the recent Bahrain Grand Prix, where he could only manage sixth on the grid and incurred a penalty for a false start as Piastri won from pole position.

The British driver then crashed out of the final stage of qualifying in Saudi Arabia last weekend, recovering from 10th on the grid to fourth as Piastri took successive victories for the first time in his career.

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Norris currently trails his team-mate by 10 points ahead of the next race in Miami, the scene of his first win at the 110th time of asking a year ago.

Norris’s Miami GP triumph came eight days after he cut his nose on broken glass during the Koningsdag (King’s Day) celebrations in the Netherlands during a rare week off, with the image of the McLaren driver sporting a bandaged face going viral on social media.

Ahead of this year’s Koningsdag on Saturday April 26, Norris has revealed that he will not attend the 2025 edition of the event as he prioritises winning the World Championship.

And he has revealed that he has not had “a single drink” of alcohol so far in F1 2025 as he puts his on-track activities first.

He told Viaplay: “I would have loved to go again because it was one of the best days of my life. And last time, I won in Miami straight afterwards.

“I miss all my friends. I had a good week in Amsterdam with Martin [Garrix, DJ], but I’m fighting for the World Championship now.

“I can’t afford to do that now. I have to go back home and train.

“The [Jeddah] race was physically demanding and I’d like to have a drink now.

“But I haven’t had a single drink all year and I’m proud of that. I just have to keep working hard and can’t go out and party.

“I’m competing against the best in the world here – Max [Verstappen], Oscar, Charles [Leclerc] and George [Russell].

“If I make even the slightest mistake, I have to pay for it immediately.”

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Despite the team winning four out of five races so far this season, Norris has frequently complained that the McLaren MCL39 car has proven tricky to drive at the start of F1 2025.

Sky F1 pundit Martin Brundle suggested over the Saudi Arabian GP weekend that McLaren’s changes to the front suspension for this season – which, as revealed by PlanetF1.com’s tech editor Matt Somerfield last month, has resulted in the steering arm being moved forward – has inadvertently robbed Norris of his “feel” for the car.

Speaking to media including PlanetF1.com after qualifying in Jeddah, McLaren team principal Andrea Stella hinted that the MCL39’s “behaviour” may have contributed to his costly error in Q3 as Norris tried to access the car’s full potential.

He said: “I think in Q3, when Lando tries to squeeze a few more milliseconds out of the car, what we see – and I think we are starting to see these even better in the data in terms of identification of what is going on – the car doesn’t respond as he expects.

“So I think this is a behavior that kind of surprises him. Today, it surprised him.

“The car understeered a bit in Turn 4 and he ended up on the outside kerb and this outside kerb can be quite unforgiving.

“In a way, it’s almost episodical.

“What’s happening is an episode and it’s an episode that I think starts from some of the work that we have done on the car.

“It made the car faster overall, but I think it took something away from Lando in terms of predictability of the car once he pushes the car at the limit.

“It’s a responsibility of the team to try and improve the car and to try and correct this behaviour.

“Because we want Lando to be confident and comfortable that he can push the car and, when he needs to find a few milliseconds, he can do it with a behaviour of the car without this sort of macroscopic consequences.

“So I see it as the responsibility of the team in terms of improving the situation.

“What’s important from Lando’s side is that, in the meantime while we don’t improve it, he maintains the confidence and an availability to adapt.

“These cars are so fast, they are so demanding in terms of just adopting a very natural driving style.

“We hear this even from Lewis Hamilton, seven-times world champion and, yet, he talks about driving the car in a natural way, because these cars are too fast to think.

“You either get what you anticipate from the car, or you’re gonna be slow, and Lando doesn’t accept to be slow. So it’s our responsibility to make sure that we give him a car that is at the level of his talent.”

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