Lando Norris has opened up on having moments of self-doubt at the start of the 2025 season after taking the championship lead with a commanding win at the Mexico Grand Prix.
The McLaren driver now leads his team-mate Oscar Piastri by just one point in the standings ahead of the final four rounds of the season.
“Times at the beginning of the years I certainly did because I’m not one that, I never want to blame my car,” Norris explained to Sky Sports F1 when asked if he had ever doubted himself in the championship fight. “And certainly when the car was winning and Oscar was winning, the last thing I ever could do is use the excuse that my car is not good enough. But I wasn’t getting up to grips and wasn’t finding a way to make it work and I’m finding a better way to make it work now.”
Norris successfully converted his pole position in Mexico into a win while his team-mate struggled, starting from seventh, slipping to ninth, and recovering to finish fifth. While the British driver took the championship lead, Red Bull’s Max Verstappen is still closing in on both him and Piastri with a late surge in performance.
When asked if his battle with his team-mate would put him on the back foot in his defence against the four-time champion, Norris added: “I don’t think so. I mean, people can always say what they want and come up with their own opinions and everyone has the right to do that. So I don’t think so. I don’t think it’s hurt us at any point this season. People, of course, will say that it has, it hasn’t.
Charles Leclerc, Ferrari, Lando Norris, McLaren
Photo by: Andy Hone/ LAT Images via Getty Images
“There’s a lot more controversy that people like to create. We still gained as a team this year because we have two guys that perform very well. It’s why we won the constructors’ already last weekend [in Singapore]. And Red Bull’s fighting for a world championship, but they don’t have a second driver that can perform and back him up.
“So, there’s a lot of things that we do very well that I think we don’t get praised for. So no, I think we’re performing well as a team. I think we’ll continue to do that and I think we’re performing how a championship team needs to perform.”
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