McLaren’s Lando Norris believes his first ever home F1 victory at the 2025 British GP is his “best win” in terms of feeling and emotions – but admitted that benefitting from a 10-second penalty for his team-mate Oscar Piastri “maybe wasn’t the best way” to win the race.
Norris had trailed behind Piastri in the intial segments of the race, as the Australian raced off into the distance building a margin of over 13 seconds when the rain hit hard on lap 14 and the safety car was deployed for the first time, just as Norris started to pressurize Max Verstappen for second.
Then on the second safety car restart, Piastri dramatically reduced his speed ahead of the restart, which meant Verstappen had to take evasive action and momentarily took the lead. That earned the Australian a 10-second time penalty, which he had to serve at his next stop.
With Verstappen spinning before the race had even restarted properly, it meant Norris’ McLaren was in prime position to win the British GP for the first time in his F1 career.
Benefitting from a penalty “not the best way” to win
Speaking after the race, Norris admitted that although it is one of his best wins in F1, the circumstances surrounding Piastri’s penalty meant it wasn’t the “best way” to win, given the Australian finished less than the 10 seconds behind the eventual British GP winner:
“For me, [Silverstone is] the best [to] win. Maybe not the best way to win, I’m not going say it’s my best win, that’s not true,” he admitted. “But in terms of what it means to win here at home, the want, the desire to do it in front of my own grandstand, my family, my friends, McLaren, His Royal Highness is here, to win in front of all of them and to make amends for last year makes it all even more special. So, yeah, very memorable.
“The last two laps, looking up at the fans and seeing them on their feet and cheering – these are moments that no one really gets to witness. This is something that I and very few others, especially Brits, get to witness.
“It’s a very selfish moment, but it’s one of the most special, the most incredible, because it’s such a rare thing that someone gets to feel and to see and to witness.”
Regret over saving tyres in the opening stint
The Briton revealed he was taking it easy in the first few laps, conserving his set of intermediate tyres for a late push if needed – but that never came, as the leaders all changed to new intermediates once the rain hit hard on lap 11 and 12 – which he believes, in hindsight, means he should’ve pushed harder early on to keep pace with Verstappen and Piastri:
“As a team, I think we did a very good job,” he reflected. “I was pretty happy with everything. I think we made the right calls at the right time. Probably could have boxed for slicks a couple of laps before we did.
“But, you know, the first part of the race, Oscar [Piastri] and Max [Verstappen] were fighting quite a lot, and I was pretty patient. I didn’t push too much.
“I tried to look after my tyres a little bit more for some of the later stages when it started to rain again, but it was probably the wrong thing to do,” he admitted. “Probably I should’ve just pushed because we went onto another set of Inters.”
Reliving “dream” 2008 Silverstone atmosphere
Norris secured McLaren’s first F1 win at the British GP since 2008, when Lewis Hamilton won the race in similarly treacherous conditions, and a young Norris followed on the TV:
“I mean, eventful race,” he summed it up. “Eventful race. I mean, it means a huge amount. You know, at the end of the day, being on top in your home race is very, very special.
“This is where it all started for me. I was watching on TV, all those many years ago, Lewis [Hamilton], Jenson [Button], Fernando [Alonso].
“I think it was that extremely wet race here in 2008. That’s when I really started watching Formula 1. And I think Lewis won, and I got that picture of him going around and seeing all the fans standing up, and that picture of what an atmosphere in Silverstone is like, and dreamed of that for many, many years.
“And today I got to live that feeling myself and see it through my own eyes. So pretty amazing, pretty special. A lot of people, from my friends and family, my brother, my sisters, my mom, my dad, my dad’s parents. Every person that I could have here is here.
“So [it’s] more special than ever, 100%. And, yeah, tough race to do it in as well.”
McLaren made the right calls amid “scary” and “thrilling” race
Speaking of the conditions out on track, the Briton emphasized how he had several “scary moments”, and praised McLaren’s clear and concise communication despite the tough circumnstances:
“It’s just tough to not crash in these conditions,” he said. “It sounds so obvious and easy, but the amount of moments you have, at turn one, the aquaplaning in [turn] two, the aquaplaning into nine, where [Isack] Hadjar crashed – you don’t realise how close sometimes we are to crashing and it all being in the bin in a matter of tenths [of a second].
“They are scary moments inside, but then they excite you in a way, and then you open your eyes, you concentrate again. It’s scary and thrilling at the same time. But they’re also fun races, but they take a lot out of you in one single race.
“So, a lot of decisions, but I think as a team, we talked through things perfectly well and we kept calm through the whole thing, and that paid dividends at the end.”
How he was “surprisingly hopeful” of a good result before the race
Now an eight-time F1 grand prix winner, Norris revealed how he felt something was different in the pre-race build-up, as he felt more positive than ever in his own chances of coming out on top in a tricky and unpredictable British GP:
“Even before the race just thinking like, ‘Someone’s got to win today, I probably have a better chance than most. There’s no reason why it can’t be me’.
“I always find it at times hard to picture and be too positive prior to races and I never say ‘today is going to be my day’.
“But I was actually surprisingly hopeful this morning that today I could do well, and I had the pace when I needed it.
“I’ve joined a long list of pretty incredible winners who have won here in the past. Most of them are Lewis! But to join him and, from a British side, to continue the reign of the British here is pretty amazing.”
