Lando Norris: McLaren driver says ‘I’ve proved myself mistaken’ after F1 championship turnaround to win 2025 drivers’ title

Lando Norris says he proved himself mistaken after having “doubts” earlier this 12 months about successful the F1 Drivers’ Championship.

Norris was outperformed by McLaren team-mate Oscar Piastri within the first half of 2025, having gone into the season as joint-favourite for the title with Max Verstappen.

He dropped to 34 factors behind Piastri after August’s Dutch Grand Prix as he suffered an oil leak however fought again by beating the Australian over the subsequent six race weekends to retake the championship lead in October and held onto that benefit till the top of Sunday’s race in Abu Dhabi, successful his maiden title by two factors from Verstappen and Piastri by 13 factors.

“Winning the first race in Australia certainly gave me a big boost. But quite quickly I had, not the best run of results, and Oscar did an incredible job, was consistently ahead of me and I had some trickier times,” defined Norris.

“At the end of the day, it shows that just consistency over a year is what helps achieve what we’ve achieved today [in Abu Dhabi]. Those tricky moments, like everyone says, you got to learn from them, you’ve got to acknowledge them, you’ve got to understand it.”

“I’ve had to go above and beyond in terms of expanding my group, expanding the people that I work with on the track and more so off the track, the amount of people that I have in my corner, not from McLaren, but externally, my friends, my family, my coaches, people that helped me think in better ways and perform in better ways.”

Norris, who’s Britain’s eleventh F1 world champion, says many individuals allowed him to “be more calm” and “not acknowledge pressure” within the second half of the season.

He continued: “If I look again on it, my first half of the season, not probably the most spectacular, actually instances I made some errors, I made some dangerous judgments, I made my errors, as I am certain each driver would admit to, however how I managed to show all of that (round) and have the second half of the season that I had is what makes me very proud that I have been capable of show myself mistaken.

“There were those doubts that I had in the beginning of the year, and I proved myself wrong, and that’s something that makes me very happy.

“Like I stated, this was a second that I received to thank all of them for that, all their arduous work, all of the stuff that different folks do for me. That is my approach of claiming thanks.”

Norris: Zandvoort retirement did not enable me to loosen up

Norris’ low level got here on the Dutch Grand Prix when he sat alone on the grassy Zandvoort banks following his retirement when operating in second as Piastri dominated the race.

The 26-year-old says the second “did not allow me to relax” however pressured him to “work harder” to mount a championship struggle again.

“When I see 34 points against a guy who’s in the same car, who’s doing an incredible job, who I know is incredibly quick, that didn’t fill me with confidence,” he stated.

“It wasn’t like, ‘ah, I have got nothing to lose now, I can just go’. I felt like I was trying to do everything I could before, and I continued to try and do everything I could after,

“I simply needed to step up what I used to be doing away from the monitor, when it comes to the folks I used to be working with. I added extra folks to that to that group.

“I had to work harder, both on the simulator, both here at track. I had to change my approaches. I had to change my style of driving.

“I simply needed to, like lots of people do, dig deep and attempt to perceive extra issues faster and in a extra superior approach than I ever have earlier than.”

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