How Lando Norris turned around his season - and F1 title prospects

Lando Norris has explained how he turned around his form to save his 2025 season - and F1 title prospects.

The Briton trailed McLaren teammate Oscar Piastri by 34 points in the championship after suffering a devastating retirement at the Dutch Grand Prix at the end of August. But six rounds later, Norris finds himself 24 points ahead heading into the season’s climax.

This weekend’s Las Vegas Grand Prix marks the start of the final triple header and last three races of the season, with Norris now in pole position to secure his maiden drivers’ world title.

Norris’s purple patch of form and stunning recent momentum has marked a stark contrast to his struggles in the earlier part of the campaign at a time when Piastri appeared to be the title favourite.

But having led the championship for 15 consecutive rounds, Piastri’s title hopes have been severely dented amid his own confidence crisis that has featured several uncharacteristic mistakes and puzzling performances.

Norris has taken control of the title race with impressive back-to-back victories in Mexico City and Brazil to equal Piastri’s total of seven wins this year.

“It’s hard not to do a better job than what I was doing at the beginning of the season - I certainly struggled,” Norris said.

“The result of where I am now is from a mental side. I’m in this position because of the beginning of the season, like, I'm almost happier that I had a pretty crappy beginning of the year.

“Those difficult times certainly allowed me to be a little bit more positive about myself, allowed me to focus and I started to do a lot more work on all of those things to improve them, which has led me to be in this much stronger position.”

Norris put his change in mental resilience down to the “good group of people around me”.

“Even if you go back to my post-race interviews in Zandvoort, I was pretty upbeat, not upbeat or like happy with what happened, but for the position I'm in, fighting for the world championship, I wasn't too deflated about the situation,” he added.

“I was obviously gutted and not happy, but it wasn't like I came in and I was just deflated about everything. The race pace was still reasonably strong, so I think it was prior to that. Everyone refers to Zandvoort as being that moment that turned things around - already prior to Zandvoort I think I started to be on the right track

“That was just a big step back in terms of positioning. The change had already started by that point. So I think by the time we got Zandvoort out the way, it gave me a bit more time to refocus.”

Norris won’t change his approach

It would be easy for Norris to play the percentage game now that he has a relatively comfortable buffer with three rounds to go.

But that is not Norris’s style. He insists he won’t change his approach and will continue to focus on one race at a time as he looks to wrap up the championship as early as possible.

With a maximum of 83 points available in the three grands prix and one sprint race that remain, the title race could be settled as early as the penultimate round of the season in Qatar next weekend. 

“What's done me so well the last few weekends is by going flat[out], staying out of trouble, staying out of the chaos behind. It's almost a safer bet in terms of pushing,” Norris added.

“So I think it's not the right mindset to have. I come here this weekend to try and win. I'll go to Qatar to try and win. I still treat it as if I'm not in a championship. I'm just here to try and win this weekend and that's the mentality I'll have over the next few weeks. Nothing changes because of whatever points I've got.”