Lando Norris describes 'deeper level' pain key to F1 title glory

Lando Norris has described how he was forced to go to a "deeper level" to understand the mistakes he was making to power himself to F1 title glory.

A late-season surge was enough for Norris to claim his first world title, which coincided with a slump for team-mate Oscar Piastri, who started with four wins from the first seven races.

In China, Norris fluffed his sprint qualifying lap before another mistake in Bahrain, and then a crash in Saudi Arabia left him out of position on the grid as Piastri won all three races.

Norris continued with an ill feeling in the MCL39 until a front suspension tweak unlocked more pace in the car, with domination of the season before the summer break, with three wins from four after the crash with Piastri in Canada which eliminated him. 

At times during his F1 career, Norris's mindset has been called into question, but in a frank manner, the 2025 world champion detailed how those mistakes and errors were key to his growth and surge to grab the championship crown.

"It started after I had that bad run in race two, three, four, five, six, that kind of area," Norris explained to media, including RacingNews365, referring to the Chinese to the Miami Grands Prix. 

"Certainly, when it was like: 'Alright, my way is not working. I’ve got to understand things differently. I’ve got to speak to more people. I've got to understand what I'm thinking, why I’m thinking it. Why am I doing this? Why am I getting tense in qualifying? Why am I making the decisions that I’m making?' or whatever it may be.

"Certainly, the bad run of results and lack of performance, not speed, because I think the speed’s always there, but lack of putting things together when I had the capability of putting things together, allowed or opened up the doors to go and understand: 'Okay, I need to do more than just try again next weekend. I need to try and understand things on a deeper level.'

"Mentally, that opened up understanding myself more, understanding things more at a championship level. That’s the level I’ve got to be at.  They are world champions. And yes, certainly the struggles turned into strength. 

"So I would say, if I didn’t have those struggles at the beginning and then had the weakness at the end, would I have caught on to those things as quickly? Probably not. So I was thankful that I had some of the tough moments early on and managed to turn them around. 

"When I got in that kind of good rhythm in the last three months, almost when there’s been more pressure than ever, was almost when I felt most comfortable and most confident in qualifying.

"I could go from chatting to my engineers and having a fun time with my mechanics to going out and getting pole a few minutes later. So, the struggle at the beginning really allowed me to unlock my potential later on."