Lando Norris has opened up about his championship battle with Oscar Piastri, past mistakes in the season, potential regrets, and McLaren’s car performance heading into the F1 Dutch GP this weekend.
Owing to his superb defensive drive in the final laps in Hungary, Norris has now emerged victorious in three of the last four races. He has managed to cut teammate Piastri’s lead in the Drivers’ Championship to just 9 points as on-track action resumes post-summer break.
With no rivals posing any credible threat and the McLaren duo more or less evenly matched in terms of performance, the 2025 Drivers’ Championship battle will likely go down to the wire.
Norris in a good place heading into the final half of the season
Speaking in a press conference ahead of the Dutch GP on Thursday, Lando Norris reflected on his mindset as the second half of the 2025 F1 season gears up for a heated championship battle between the Brit and his McLaren teammate, Oscar Piastri.
Acknowledging that he had encountered some hardships earlier in the season, the 25-year-old insisted that he worked together with the team to overcome those challenges and that the last few races are a testament to his improvement.
Nonetheless, Norris cautioned against complacency and proclaimed that he is ready for a demanding second half of the season.
“I felt good before; I feel good now.
“I went through some harder times at the beginning of the year. There were some tricky moments but we worked on quite a bit, me from my side and the team from their side, to improve and get a bit back on track. We did that. So it was nice to see some of those results come back my way.
“But, there always was, still is, and always will be more things to improve on and try and get stronger at. That’s what Formula 1 is, really, at the end of the day.
“I feel good, ready to go again—ready for a long, tricky, challenging second part of the season, but all for good reasons.”
Norris not expecting a dominant win at Zandvoort this year
The 2024 F1 Dutch GP saw Lando Norris dominate the rest of the field as he took the chequered flag 22.896s ahead of Max Verstappen in second place.
In terms of whether he is expecting a similar level of performance from the car this year, Norris revealed that he anticipates the MCL39 to deliver strong results at Zandvoort. However, underscoring the gains a couple of other teams have made in the past few race weekends, he admitted that he has ruled out the possibility of a win by a huge margin.
Emphasising how McLaren strive to achieve a 1-2 finish every Sunday, the nine-time race winner also stated that they would consider the lack of a strong challenge from their immediate rivals this weekend an additional reward.
“I mean, of course. We’ve, as a team, been stronger this year, but I feel like other people have caught up a little bit in the last couple of races.
“What made us very strong here last year, other people have caught up on, but we’ve also improved in other places. So, I don’t expect to win by 20 seconds or something, but I would love it if that was the case!
“I’ll try and achieve a similar thing. But I don’t think we expect any race to go easily now.
“We always come into races wanting to win, expecting a one-two, and that’s our aim and target every weekend. But we never get complacent and think it’s going to be an easy one. We always expect a good challenge. If we don’t and we’re further ahead, then that’s just a bonus.”
Norris reflects on missed opportunities
Given that 9 points separate Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris in the F1 Drivers’ Championship standings heading into this weekend’s Dutch GP, the 25-year-old contemplated how he has left points on the board.
Highlighting the Sprint qualifying in China and Lap 67 of the Canadian GP, the McLaren driver admitted that he had failed to capitalise on those occasions and lost crucial points.
“I mean, could I at times have made better decisions? I think so.
“If I had that thought a little bit more in my head at the time, probably the main one was China Sprint qualifying. I think my lap was good enough for pole until the final hairpin where I locked up. If I had that thought just before braking—”It’s a long season, don’t try and be a hero”—I wouldn’t have finished it like that. I lost eight points there.
“Canada—if I could rerun that and just be a little bit smarter and not take so much risk, could I have not lost quite a few points there? Yes. I don’t know.”
Norris doesn’t regret past decisions and seeks to learn from them
Asked whether he harbours any regrets looking back and whether he is concerned that points lost somewhere earlier in the season might play a decisive role later in the championship battle, Lando Norris gave a nuanced response in a press conference leading up to the F1 Dutch GP.
Conceding that he would approach those moments differently if he could turn back the wheel of time, Norris nevertheless maintained that he doesn’t lament the decisions he had made at the time. Furthermore, the Brit claimed that the lowest of lows will offer profound lessons for the future and help him develop into a better driver.
“But I’m also the guy that—I wouldn’t say I regret those moments. Do I wish it was better? Do I wish I could do it again? Yeah. But at the same time, I don’t regret making those decisions at the time, because that’s me, that’s life, and that’s the way it goes.
“Sometimes it goes your way and you get lucky; sometimes it doesn’t and you don’t make the best decisions. But those are also the times you learn the most and help yourself more for the future. So, no, I live my life not by regretting what I’ve, more trying to learn and improving from it.”
