McLaren offer insight into 'demanding' Lando Norris relationship change

Lando Norris has developed an "incredibly powerful" relationship with McLaren over the years, allowing him to become 'more demanding' on the F1 team than has previously been the case.

That is the view of Norris' race engineer, Will Joseph, who has helped nurture and develop the F1 rookie from 2019 into a title contender this season.

Norris pushed Red Bull's Max Verstappen hard on occasion last year, although his challenge from so far back never materialised into a genuine title tilt.

On this occasion, Norris is firmly in the hunt alongside Verstappen, and, in particular, McLaren team-mate Oscar Piastri, who has taken a 10-point lead in the drivers' standings after winning three of the last four grands prix since the Briton's opening race win in Australia.

Unsurprisingly, over time, Joseph can attest to Norris' development as a driver, given how the 25-year-old has matured and his experience has ramped up over the years.

"There's a huge change in him and the way we as a team have had to work," said Joseph, speaking to RacingNews365. "When he joined, he was a rookie, and we came up with a development plan of what we thought we needed to cover to ultimately achieve our goal and his goals. That needs to change on a year-by-year basis.

"In year one, you have to make sure you get the fundamentals right. You have to make sure you know the regulations. You want to minimise any mistakes regarding the regulations. He doesn't need to worry about the setup of the car and the details of that because I can take care of all of that.

"Then, over time, he becomes more aware of things, to the point now whereby he's much more capable and aware than we are because he's so in tune with the car now that he has that understanding.

"He can be demanding on us now, whereas before we had to be more demanding on him. The relationship has changed hugely in that sense.

"Some of the fundamentals have stayed the same. From day one, we said we're going to make sure we have fun because if it's not fun for anyone, then why continue to do it?"

Norris and McLaren putting 'bigger picture together'

Since his success at Melbourne's Albert Park, Norris has been unable to put together a complete weekend, finishing second in the two races that followed in China and Japan, followed by third in Bahrain, and fourth in Saudi Arabia.

Through it all, despite the mistakes made by Norris, he knows he has Joseph and those around him fighting in his corner. There is a level of trust between a driver and his race engineer that goes far beyond many other relationships in the team.

"Trust is a huge thing," remarked Joseph. "We have to have this trusting relationship whereby he can trust us and vice versa.

"There are things that we say or do within our small group, and Lando trusts us that if we're unhappy with something that's happened, we will tell him, and we know that if he's unhappy with something we've done, he will tell us.

"That's incredibly powerful when you build a relationship because that strong trust allows us to have...not conflict, but you can have those interactions and have the humility to say, 'We're just trying to achieve the best, and this is how we do better'.

"Trust has been fundamental, and through that we've had changes as he's grown up into an adult, as he's become more experienced with the car, with the tyres and with the tracks.

"A driver in their third year has only ever been to a certain track twice before in an F1 car. Every bit of experience counts, and you need multiple seasons to get that vast amount of experience to put the bigger picture together.

"That starts to pay off progressively, as we've been seeing."