The adrenaline beginning to drain but the euphoria of a first world title still very present, Lando Norris reflected on what achieving his lifetime ambition meant to him.
“I just won it my way,” the McLaren driver said. “I’m happy I could go out and be myself.”
“I feel like I have just managed to win it the way I wanted to win it, which was not by being someone I’m not. Not trying to be as aggressive as Max [Verstappen] or as forceful as other champions might have been in the past – whatever it may be. My style of just trying to be a good person and a good team member.”
The 26-year-old did a lot of talking after climbing out of his car in Abu Dhabi, where his third-place finish in the 2025 season finale ensured he beat Verstappen to the championship by two points. As is the way in F1, drivers finished media commitments before celebrating, and among the many words Norris spoke, these stood out as fitting comments at the end of a season that mirrored his journey to the top.
It has not been easy. There were bumps in the road and some believe Verstappen might have been a more worthy champion, given his revival late in the season. Verstappen mounted one of the all-time great comebacks from September, while Norris weathered an early rough patch and rode his own wave of momentum to reach his goal in a race that, though tense, felt like he had it under control.
After the podium celebrations—doused in champagne by race-winner Verstappen and McLaren team-mate Oscar Piastri as the three title contenders finished at the front just as they had started the race—Norris seemed to come to terms with his achievement in real time, explaining how he had got there. He spoke movingly about making people important to him proud, especially his parents and colleagues at McLaren.
“I feel proud but not because I’m going to wake up tomorrow and go, ‘I beat everyone,'” he said. “I’m not proud because I get to just say I’m a world champion. I’m proud because I feel like I made a lot of other people happy.”
He opened up on who he is: honest, determined to be himself, and willing to show his feelings—even the difficult ones—a trait that has sometimes drawn criticism.
“Could I have gone out and been more of that person you probably want me to be at times? I could have done,” he said. “I would have been less proud about it in some ways. So, that’s why I’m very happy with myself. I kept my cool, I kept to myself, I kept the focus on myself, and I got the most out of how I am.”
‘The struggles turned into strength’
Norris began the season as favourite following McLaren’s strong end to 2024. After winning the first race, however, he hit a rough patch and team-mate Piastri moved into a comfortable lead. Norris was not at one with the car, struggled to feel the front axle in qualifying and made mistakes—including a big crash in Saudi Arabia—and when you start behind in modern F1, you often finish there.
McLaren worked on it, introducing a tweak to the front suspension to improve feel. It was a small change but, combined with work behind the scenes, it helped. Norris knew what he needed to improve and worked on adapting to the car and managing his mental approach, which slowly made a difference.
“It started after I had that kind of bad run in race two, three, four, five, six, that kind of area,” he said. “Or certainly when it was like, ‘All right, my way is not working. I’ve got to understand things differently. I’ve got to speak to more people. I’ve got to understand what I’m thinking, why I’m thinking it. Why am I doing this? Why am I getting tense in qualifying? Why am I making the decisions that I’m making?'”
“The bad run of results and lack of performance— not speed, because I think the speed’s always there—allowed or opened up the doors to go and understand: ‘OK, I need to do more than just try again next weekend. I need to try and understand things on a deeper level.’ That opened up understanding myself more, understanding things more at a championship level. And yes, certainly the struggles turned into strength.”
He was 34 points adrift of Piastri after the Dutch Grand Prix at the end of August, with nine races to go. That was when the run of form that ultimately took him to the title started. Contrary to the outside perception that being behind freed him to take risks, Norris said it spurred harder work.
“No, it didn’t allow me to relax,” he said. “Thirty-four points against a guy who had the same car, who was doing an incredible job, who I know is incredibly great, it didn’t fill me with confidence and (make me think) I have nothing to lose now. I just had to step up, what I was doing away from the track, the people I was working with. I had to involve people to that group, I had to work harder, I was on a simulator, I had to change my approaches, I had to change my style of driving, I had to dig deep, to unlock more of my ideas.”
“I’m trying to understand more things quicker, in a more advanced way than I ever have before.”
Team principal Andrea Stella praised Norris’s development. “The level of Formula 1 drivers nowadays is so high, to compete at this level, the only way to stay in the quest is to keep evolving continuously,” Stella said. “If I look at Lando, definitely there was a lot that was taken away from the quest last year… I think Lando elevated his sense of, almost his status, like, ‘I can compete with Max.'”
“This season there was another important turning point, which is the way Lando responded to the difficulties we had at the start of the season. There was the start of a process which was structured, it was holistic, it was involving personal development, professional, driving, racecraft. It makes me particularly glad that Lando could capitalise on this, because this has been something that not necessarily I’ve seen many times before, in terms of the amount of work, the people involved, and the rate of development.”
For McLaren CEO Zak Brown, Norris’s title was also personal: Brown backed Norris from age 14, supported him through the junior ranks and brought him to McLaren. “The management he has around him have done an awesome job bringing him up to be the mature world champion that he now is. And it’s a great accomplishment. It’s very rewarding.”
‘I missed Lando growing up’
For Norris’s family there were sacrifices. His mother Cisca told BBC Radio 5 Live the achievement was emotionally overwhelming. “We backed Lando during all the good and bad times. We always stood on his side… It’s a dream come true for Lando.”
She spoke of the toll: children growing up separately because of competition travel, missing milestones, and the strain on family life. “He can do what he wants. He is a grown-up man, and the last six months, he has changed and become stronger in his mind as well.”
Looking back at the season, Norris acknowledged his errors and what made his success meaningful.
“If I look back at it from the first half of the season, not the most impressive. Certainly times I’ve made some mistakes, I’ve made some bad judgments, I’ve made my errors. But how I managed to turn all of that, and have the second half of the season that I had, is what makes me very proud, that I’ve been able to prove myself wrong. That makes me very happy.”
