Marc Priestley says Lando Norris has done something this year that Ron Dennis ‘never’ allowed at McLaren

Lando Norris’ winless run has extended to five races after last weekend’s Miami Grand Prix. McLaren teammate Oscar Piastri is now on a streak of three in a row.

Just over a year ago, Norris hadn’t won a race at all. But now expectations have changed because he’s driving a dominant car – as the 33-second margin to third-place George Russell in Florida demonstrated.

For the second time in as many visits to Miami, Norris benefitted from the timing of a safety car. It allowed him to leapfrog Piastri and take victory in the Sprint.

He then qualified second for the Grand Prix, two spots ahead of the Australian, and had a chance to make a dent in his championship lead. However, he ended up running off the track in a tussle with pole-sitter Max Verstappen, costing him places.

The Englishman fought his way back to second and was only 4.6 seconds behind Piastri at the flag. It was a better weekend after costly errors in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, but he’s still slipped 16 points back in the intra-team battle.

Lando Norris has changed his ways at McLaren – and it may be hurting him

Speaking after the Saudi Arabian GP, Norris says he’s stopped drinking this year and wouldn’t be taking part in the King’s Day celebrations in the Netherlands. He sustained a minor facial injury at the same event in 2024.

Lewis Hamilton has spoken about the benefits of sobriety in racing, but F1 pit lane reporter Ted Kravitz offered a different take. He says Norris could do with the distraction.

Speaking on the Pitlane Life Lessons podcast, Kravitz told Marc Priestley: “Lando said, ‘Oh no, I’m not going to do that this year, I’m in the middle of a championship fight’. And I thought, ‘You need to do that’. You need a night out.”

Priestley then explained that Ron Dennis always warned against changing the habits that had made them successful. Dennis was in charge at McLaren from 1981 to 2008 before another short stint between 2014 and 2017.

“The idea of doing something differently because you’re in a championship [fight]… Ron Dennis always used to say to us, ‘Never do that, never change your ways because now it matters more’,” Priestley recalled. “You do the same thing that’s got you to the point of fighting for a championship.

“It was particularly pertinent on the final day of a season, you’d be on the grid and your driver – first it was Mika [Hakkinen], then Kimi [Raikkonen], then Lewis – you’d bolt the wheels onto the car, and your natural thought process is, ‘This matters more, so I should check more, or I should be a little bit more diligent in what I’m doing’.

“But the reality is that if you do that, you start to introduce new things, mistakes happen. It’s about keeping the consistency.

“If Lando’s thinking along those lines, there’s an argument to say you’re changing your approach because it matters more, which I can’t believe is a good way to look at things.”

Lewis Hamilton could have made his F1 debut even earlier if it wasn’t for Ron Dennis

Dennis’ policy delivered mixed results. Of the drivers Priestley mentioned, two won the world championship.

Hakkinen went back-to-back in 1998 and ’99, while Hamilton prevailed in 2008. However, Raikkonen finished as runner-up twice in his time at Woking, most notably in 2005 when poor reliability cost him dear. He left 12 months later.

Dennis delayed Hamilton’s debut to 2007 because he was wary of throwing him in at the ‘deep end’. The GP2 champion immediately competed for the title when he arrived.

Sergio Perez was the chosen replacement when Hamilton moved to Mercedes in 2013. While team principal Martin Whitmarsh wanted to keep the underwhelming Mexican, Dennis pushed for Kevin Magnussen to join.

He got his way, but McLaren continued to stray deeper into the F1 wilderness and wouldn’t emerge for around a decade.