Lando Norris reveals what he has been doing to cut down on F1 errors

Lando Norris says he has learned to dial things back and drive at 95% after pushing too hard in the early stages of the 2025 Formula 1 season and making costly errors.

Norris started the year as the title favourite after finishing runner-up to Red Bull’s Max Verstappen in 2024, but he has struggled to regularly outperform his younger teammate Oscar Piastri, who has led the championship since the fifth round in Saudi Arabia.

Heading into this weekend’s Hungarian Grand Prix, he trails Piastri by 16 points in the standings, having scored four grand prix wins to the Australian’s six.

Much of that deficit can be explained by the errors Norris has made this year, including a crash in qualifying in Jeddah and an accident with Piastri in Montreal for which he was held responsible by the stewards.

Speaking in Hungary, the Briton admitted to overdriving this season and explained that he has to cut back on mistakes by driving at “95%” when required.

"Sometimes this year, even 95% would have been fine," Norris was quoted by the BBC.

"These are some of my mistakes from earlier on in the season. I tried before at 101%. Sometimes that's amazing. Sometimes that's as good as you can get. I do believe that.

“But also at times I should drive at 95% or even 90% and that's not enough to be on pole or P2 sometimes.

“I do regret trying to be so good at the beginning part of the season. And now, already I sometimes settle for a 95% lap and that's still good enough."

With Verstappen having slipped back following a rough patch of results, the title fight now appears to be a straight contest between the two McLaren drivers.

Norris believes the outcome of the championship will come down to which of the two makes fewer mistakes in the decisive phase of the season.

"It's just who qualifies first and second more often. And you kind of just hold on in Turn 1 and then go from there,” he said.

“There's not been many races where positions have swapped through a race.

"So therefore it's more who can make the least mistakes when they qualify first."