Lando Norris has set McLaren a clear target ahead of the 2025 Formula 1 season, and has already seen his team do ‘the opposite’ of what may have been ‘easy’ this winter.
The Woking outfit hit the off-season in what had become unfamiliar territory after McLaren won the 2024 F1 constructors’ title. It marked their first victory in the teams’ championship since 1998 and they will now bid to seal two in a row for the first time since 1990 and 1991.
Norris was not even born the last time that McLaren had won the constructors’ title before leading their charge to the trophy last term. The 25-year-old scored 374 of their 666 points, with teammate Oscar Piastri adding 292 for second and fourth in the drivers’ championship.
McLaren stun Lando Norris with the F1 team’s mindset as the constructors’ champions
But after winning the team’s first constructors’ championship in 26 years, Norris admits that it could have been ‘easy’ for McLaren to relax and believe the job is done. Instead, McLaren have impressed the Briton with how they have used last year’s title as motivation for 2025.
READ MORE: The best moments of Lando Norris’ career in Formula 1
Norris appreciates how McLaren’s engineers have sought to identify areas where they could improve their car for the new campaign. Yet the Bristol-born pilot has also pleaded with the papaya squad to make his life easier with Norris and McLaren eager to avoid ‘difficult’ races.
“I think one thing we’ve realised as a team is now we’re there, we want to make it easy for ourselves,” Norris told Mastercard. “We want to keep going so that we can win easily these races and not have them as difficult as they were last year.
“So, the team have remained very focused. It was easy for all of them to get back and just go, ‘We’re good, we’ve done it now, let’s just relax’. They’ve done the opposite.
“They’ve gone, ‘We want even more’ and they’ve worked even harder to try and find new things for this year. So, I think they’ve turned these expectations into positive things, into more motivation and more drive to want it again.”
Lando Norris needs McLaren to stop making costly errors to win the drivers’ title
Norris will hope McLaren listen to his plea for easier wins from the off in 2025 after his slow start to the 2024 season cost the Briton a chance for a realistic drivers’ championship bid as Max Verstappen lifted a fourth successive title. Red Bull dominated the early races last year.
Outside of Norris’ podium with P3 in the Australian Grand Prix when Verstappen retired due to his brake failure, the McLaren driver opened his 2024 campaign with a P6 in Bahrain, a P8 in Saudi Arabia and a P5 in Japan. Verstappen won those three races by 16.212s on average.
READ MORE: Every McLaren driver since the 2000 Formula 1 season, ranked
That strong start ultimately set Verstappen up to win the championship with his consistency as McLaren, Ferrari and Mercedes took wins off each other meant no driver would seriously threaten the Red Bull star’s lead. McLaren also made life difficult for themselves plus Norris.
If it was not for the points Norris lost through his and McLaren’s mistakes in 2024 with their refusal to use team orders costly in Hungary and Italy, errors in their strategy in Canada and Great Britain plus his on-track mishaps in Spain and Brazil, then the title may have been on.
Leave feedback about this