As the final laps of the 2025 Australian Grand Prix came to a close, a tense battle kicked up between leader Lando Norris and second-placed Max Verstappen as the Red Bull driver edged into DRS range.

Norris was able to hold off the reigning champion to take his fifth career win — and, according to McLaren team principal Andrea Stella, there’s no need to be concerned about the rapidly closing pace: Lando Norris‘ MCL39 had suffered damage.

Lando Norris defends Aus GP race lead despite damage

The wet and wild Australian Grand Prix was a stunning kick-off to the 2025 Formula 1 season, with a formation lap crash by Isack Hadjar delaying the start, while multiple in-race skirmishes chopping down the running order.

One thing was clear, though: McLaren arrived in Albert Park with the car to beat.

While Max Verstappen was able to part the papaya sea at the start of the race, front-row qualifiers Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri were the class of the field, managing their machinery and talking strategy with their engineers as, at first, the track began to dry — only for a sudden, heavy rain storm to drench things again.

However, both drivers skidded off the road on Lap 44 as the sudden wet conditions caught their hard tires by surprise.

Norris was able to right his MCL39 and pull into the pits for an instant swap to intermediate tires. Piastri wasn’t so lucky and needed to reverse his way out of the grass to make it back into the race.

F1 2025: Driver head-to-head stats

👉 F1 2025: Head-to-head qualifying statistics between team-mates

👉 F1 2025: Head-to-head race statistics between team-mates

A handful of crashes during that rainy period brought out a lengthy safety car, and when the race restarted on lap 51 of 57, Norris held his lead to the close.

But for those final laps, victory wasn’t guaranteed. Max Verstappen’s RB21 remained within a second of the car in front, giving him a strong opportunity to overtake when DRS was enabled.

Verstappen ultimately wasn’t able to make it happen, but after the race, members of the media quizzed McLaren team boss Andrea Stella on the feeling within the team as the Dutch driver chased down Norris. Were they worried Max might snatch that win?

It was only then that Stella revealed something incredible: Norris’ MCL39 was seriously damaged.

“One issue we had in the final laps of the race with Lando is that he had the floor pretty badly damaged, so he lost — I haven’t heard the numbers yet, but he lost aerodynamic performance, and this meant he couldn’t utilize the full pace of the car,” Stella explained.

“So I think the situation got more tense than would have normally been the case because of this damage on Lando’s car. I think how strong the car was we could see actually with Oscar, that in the space of a few laps he recovered three, four positions.

“I think in normal circumstances, it shouldn’t have been that difficult for Lando.”

Stella noted that the team isn’t sure at the moment just when Norris sustained that damage — whether it was the trip to the gravel that did it, or whether something else caused an issue after the restart. But what’s certain is that Lando Norris was nevertheless able to hold of Verstappen, no matter the state of his car.

Entering the 2025 season, Norris has joined Verstappen as one of the title favorites, in large part because the MCL39 has remained a dominant machine. However, the British driver’s biggest struggles have seemed to be mental ones; in high-pressure situations, Norris has had a tendency to fold.

In 2024, that manifested in a chronic struggle to maintain position at the race start, as well as silly errors when the pressure grated on him.

The final laps of the Australian Grand Prix provided many opportunities for Norris to cave under pressure — the weather, his drift into the gravel, the restart, Verstappen in his rearview mirrors — even before you factor in his damaged floor. That the Briton was able to hold onto it through to the finish proves his off-season prep has helped him make progress.

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