Lando Norris might have straggled behind team-mate Oscar Piastri throughout the Chinese Grand Prix weekend, but the surprise candidness about his struggles hinted at a breakthrough which shows that he is still the McLaren driver to beat in Formula 1 in 2025.
Norris went into the second round atop the Drivers’ Championship having survived a chaotic, rain-hit season-opening race in Australia to deliver on the overwhelming consensus that he and McLaren will be the benchmark combination on the current grid.
But while that success boosted Norris’s confidence that he harbours the mindset and the tools at his disposal to go one better this time around, the attention on the Briton soon swivelled to an honest admission that proceeded to dominate his entire weekend.
Rather than revelling in his newfound status as the hunted and not the hunter, Norris divulged to the world’s media in Shanghai that his pole-to-win drive in Melbourne had come despite him not being at ease with McLaren’s new 2025 machine, the MCL39.
Norris explained how McLaren’s latest creation isn’t compatible with his innate desire to brake later and attack the corner entries, with the car instead rewarding a driver who adopts a passive approach to maximise the traction available on the exits.
“It’s similar characteristics [to last year’s car], and some of those characteristics I don’t like and do not suit the way I want to drive in an attacking way,” Norris told media including Motorsport Week. “It doesn’t suit me in terms of me wanting to push the entries and push the braking.
“It’s very weak, I would say, from that point of view. So not what I like, but at the same time, some of it is down to the adaptation of needing to change a little bit my driving styles every year.
“The car I drive this year is very different to what a McLaren was a few years ago, clearly, because we were at the back and now we’re at the front. But I think it’s unique in certain aspects and obviously, we have our strengths and weaknesses. And whenever someone has been at McLaren and gone to another team, they’ve said how hard or odd McLaren has been to drive, whether it was Daniel [Ricciardo] or it was Carlos [Sainz].”
This wasn’t an unconventional address from Norris when it comes to his view on driving a McLaren, as he has long been outspoken about the Woking-based squad’s cars comprising particular characteristics that make them challenging to drive on the limit.
That is a situation that has become exacerbated with McLaren’s return to the sharp end, and the drawback has become more prominent with the subtle tweaks the side has made with the pacesetting MCL39.
And while he had thwarted Piastri’s bid to prevail on home soil, Norris’ comments would prove to be well-timed as they preceded the Australian maintaining the edge in the intra-team duel last weekend.
Norris never appeared to retain an obvious pace disadvantage relative to Piastri and, when he strung his laps together, he tended to be the quickest driver out there – as was demonstrated during the sole practice session. But his execution was less consistent as he became ever more ragged as McLaren’s capricious quirks became more unavoidable as the fuel load lightened.
That culminated in him making mistakes on both SQ3 runs he attempted during Sprint Qualifying, resigning him to sixth on the grid.
Norris’ woes were compounded in the shortened race as a careless excursion on the opening lap relegated him to ninth, where he remained, behind Lance Stroll’s Aston Martin, up until a penultimate-lap overtake.
With parc ferme reopened, Norris requested alterations to his car that inspired an improvement, but not a big enough one to usurp Piastri as his team-mate stormed to pole position with two laps good enough to claim top spot, while George Russell in the Mercedes ended up splitting the McLarens.
A comparison between the quickest laps the McLaren drivers produced indicated that Piastri was more in tune with the MCL39.
This was exhibited through the long radius corners that make up the opening sequence between Turns 1 and 3, where Norris was struggling to get the car’s nose rotated due to the understeer that he was encountering.
The car being more lethargic also caused Norris to bleed time at the Turn 14 hairpin that succeeds the 1.2-kilometre long back straight, a corner where Piastri exuded tremendous confidence on the brake pedal.
“We made a good amount of changes,” Norris, who ended up 0.152 seconds down on Piastri’s pole benchmark, commented. “Obvious ones, to try and improve the front end. I can’t drive a car with no front. I can, but I struggle, and it’s just been too understeery, the car, the last few days – I just cannot maximise the package that way.”
Piastri wasn’t immune to getting caught out, though. His own blunder in SQ3 cost him a higher grid slot and a chance to challenge Lewis Hamilton, the eventual Sprint winner.
However, Piastri’s technique was better-suited to tempering the limitations of the MCL39 that become more pronounced when courting the vital last milliseconds on a lap.
McLaren boss Andrea Stella substantiated that view as he admitted the 2025 car has restricted Norris more than his team-mate.
“There’s a couple of things – one mainly related to the behaviour of the tyres on this surface, and the other one I think is more related to the behaviour of the car – that make exploiting the car at the limit a bit difficult,” Stella said. “This is the same for both drivers, but I think it’s more of a penalty for Lando, given his driving style and the way he wants to generate lap time.”
Starting third, Norris conceded that he shelved genuine concern heading into the main event based upon his woes up to that point in the weekend, with McLaren’s margin not as seismic as it had been at Albert Park.
But Norris transpired to be much more competitive in race trim as he overhauled Russell on two occasions – once at the start and then on Lap 18 having been undercut – to cement McLaren’s 50th 1-2 in the sport.
Indeed, the five-time F1 race winner was even targeting a late assault on his team-mate’s lead when he reported his brake pedal going long with seven laps to go, an issue which the McLaren engineers had spotted developing around mid-distance in the race.
The problem deteriorated to the point where it became critical and Norris was made to squander more than three seconds on the last lap to nurse his car to the chequered flag, doing so with under two seconds in hand over the quick-closing Russell behind.
“I think without the brake problem it would have been an interesting final part of the race,” Stella pondered. “I think Lando ultimately was a bit upset that we got the problem with the brakes because he thought that he had saved the tyres to give it a go over the last 15 laps.”
But while an outright battle between the two McLaren drivers didn’t come to pass, that is certain to materialise sooner or later as the contest to earn the ultimate prize ramps up.
Piastri translating his maiden pole into the race win – on a circuit which provoked an extensive delve into his driving 12 months ago – placed down an emphatic statement.
However, Norris is still in the driving seat with a 10-point advantage over his team-mate, who lies three places behind, and a challenging weekend in China could prove to be a turning point in his campaign this time.
“I’m happy considering how bad my last few days have been and how much I struggled just to get comfortable and understand how to drive the car,” Norris reviewed. “To go to the pace I had today, which I think was very strong, it was a much better race than I was thinking I was going to have.
“I was not confident one bit and, yeah, I was nervous that I was going to struggle just as badly, honestly. But very satisfied to know how much I’ve improved from a car point of view, from a driving point of view. Today was a much stronger day, so I’m more satisfied to know I’ve got answers for my struggles and, yeah, that makes me happy.”
Those comments are comparable to the words Max Verstappen uttered when he recounted how a similar loss at the 2023 Azerbaijan Grand Prix to then team-mate Sergio Perez provided him with valuable teachings about Red Bull’s car that season.
“Yeah, I think I learned a lot from the race in Baku, how to do some things with the car, how to set it up,” the Dutchman elucidated.
“Of course, I didn’t win that race in Baku but actually I really tried a lot of stuff and different tools in the car. That’s why throughout the race it was a little bit inconsistent, but at one point, I got into a good rhythm with what I found. But then I damaged my tyres a bit too much. But it was like ‘OK, that’s quite interesting for the next races’. And I basically implemented that, and it has helped me on every track.”
Now, Norris is not Verstappen. However, there are similarities between the respective situations which involved both individuals struggling to push the boundaries without understanding where the car’s limits are – something that Norris alluded to post race.
“I think we’re both still, as a team we’re still understanding this car and knowing its limitations, how to get the most out of it,” he professed.
“I feel like, especially for me, in the longer run stuff and even the short run stuff, I’ve not been anywhere near as confident as I would like to be, and I’ve not got the feeling from the car that I need in order to maximise the performance.
But today was a much better showing of that and a much better understanding of it. So yeah, made some tweaks with the car, mechanically and aerodynamically, and it was a much better day today. So I’m happy with it.”
Verstappen’s discovery inspired him to astronomical heights as he produced the greatest statistical season the series has seen, winning 19 times over the 22 races – including a record 10 victories in succession.
The prospect that Norris boasts a similar strike rate across the remaining 22 races to come is minute, with his margin to Piastri much smaller than the one that Verstappen had occupied over the now-departed Perez.
But like Verstappen, Norris understanding the hurdles that have contributed to a ceiling being imposed on his true potential could be a watershed moment should he end up collecting a maiden Drivers’ title this season.
