How Lando Norris’ “this is the car I don’t want” debrief sparked F1 title turnaround

Lando Norris has revealed a key debrief with his engineer following the Singapore Grand Prix sparked his recent resurgence in the 2025 F1 title race.

Norris now leads the 2025 F1 drivers’ championship with four rounds to go following his dominant drive at the Mexico City Grand Prix.

The British driver won Sunday’s race in Mexico by over 30 seconds ahead of Charles Leclerc.

It means Norris is now one point ahead of Piastri heading into next weekend’s Sao Paulo Grand Prix.

Max Verstappen remains an outsider, trailing Norris by 36 points.

Norris has struggled with the handling of the MCL39 throughout this season.

His troubles forced McLaren to introduce a revised suspension upgrade for the Canadian Grand Prix.

Since the summer break, Norris has fared better than Piastri despite his DNF at Zandvoort.

Reflecting on his impressive form after his win in Mexico, Norris detailed an important meeting with his engineers after Singapore.

“It’s just, I feel better with the car today,” Norris told Sky Sports F1 after his Mexico victory.

“Everything’s about how I feel with the car. Last year, I felt very good with the car, I could perform better. This year I’ve struggled to get to grips with it.

“It’s been incredibly quick, but it’s clearly still difficult to drive. But when you get in that sweet spot, you can make it work, and it’s still something that over the last few weekends I’ve struggled with, even in Singapore.

“I mean, we had our debrief and we sat down for half an hour, and like: ‘Guys, this is exactly the car I don’t want. This is the reason why we can’t win more races, why we’re not gonna win in the future, is if we keep having a car that doesn’t give me what I need’. This weekend, I just had a little bit more what I need, and I can perform how I did this weekend. It’s as simple as that.”

Norris admits to having doubts

With Piastri winning four of the opening eight races and Norris winning just two, he conceded that he did have doubts earlier in the year.

Norris pointed out that he couldn’t blame the car, given it was winning the majority of the races.

“At times at the beginning of the year, I certainly did. Because I never want to blame my car, 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,” Norris added.

“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. It’s as simple as that.

“One race performing well I don’t think means anything. Two, three, four in a row, does.

“I think the last few months have been good. Max has still caught me. I’ve had one good weekend now, but Max has still caught over the last few months, and I still got to keep my head down.”