Norris Confident: McLaren Ready for 2025 Title Shot

Lando Norris expresses strong belief in McLaren’s potential to challenge for the 2025 Formula 1 championship.

Following his first victory and witnessing McLaren F1’s progress since last year, Lando Norris is convinced that he and his team can contend for the world championship as early as the 2025 season.

“Next year? 100%. I say this while keeping my feet on the ground,” Norris stated, having returned today to the McLaren factory in Woking with the Miami trophy.

“I want to believe that we have two good drivers. As Zak [Brown, CEO of McLaren] often says, I have an amazing team behind me. We have an incredible team behind us and we are closer than ever.”

“I said at the beginning of the year that we could win races. I want to believe it and I should have the confidence to say that next year, we can go further, we can take the next step. But we still have a lot of work to do and we are working hard to try to achieve it.”

Meanwhile, for 2024, Norris says, “we can win more races this year; absolutely. We can compete with Red Bull. I think we are looking at an exciting rest of the season between us, Red Bull, and Ferrari.”

“We still have work to do and we are not yet at the level where they are. There will be races where we will be competitive enough, but on average, we are not quite where we want to be.”

“We are still keeping our feet on the ground. As soon as the guys have had a little drink, I’m going to tell them to get back to work so we can continue to aim for even more success.”

Norris defeated Max Verstappen in Miami, and he is convinced that they can consistently fight and stay “quite close” off the track.

“I’m sure it will change in terms of relationship. I don’t mean ‘for the worse.’ We respect each other, we get along well. We’re not best friends. We don’t text each other every day, that kind of thing. But we can stay quite close.”

“We have a lot of respect for each other, him towards me and me towards him. I’m looking forward to it. I want to challenge him. I want to race against him.”

“I want to fight against him because I think he is one of the best Formula 1 drivers. If I can still prove myself, I will do it. If I can prove myself against him, I’m proving myself against one of the best. And that’s exactly what I want to do.”

“Some difficulties” over the weekend

Norris struggled to find his words at the end of the race, and he continues to be overwhelmed by several emotions, but he draws a very positive assessment of the weekend, after a tricky start: “I still don’t know how I feel! I’m just happy, proud. It feels like it’s been a long time coming.”

“I feel like we’ve had a lot of opportunities. We’ve been getting closer and closer. We’ve never been able to put it all together, and Sunday was that day. We were good all weekend.”

“Even though we faced some difficulties—Friday’s qualifying, the Sprint, Saturday’s qualifying weren’t the best—I stayed positive. And that’s rare! Everything came together. We were fast all day.”

“I had a good strategy, a good plan. I stayed out of trouble in the first corner because it was very tight. I focused on our race, and we were fast. Of course, we got a bit lucky with the safety car.”

“Of course, we got a bit lucky with the safety car, but even after that, the pace was by far the best on the track. As soon as the safety car went in, I felt very good. Even before, I felt very good. The pace was amazing, better than Max’s and everyone else’s.”

“I was far behind, but I knew I could have opportunities. Hard work turned into luck. It wasn’t just luck. Things were going well, and that little extra helped me.”

“As soon as the safety car came out, I didn’t think ‘Max is going to get me here.’ I was confident. I didn’t do what was best at the restart. I defended in the first corner, and from there, it was pretty straightforward. I had a smile from lap 33 to the last lap!”

Norris was touched to be congratulated by his peers at the end of the race, including world champions Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton: “It’s incredible. It’s the best thing, people you respect and those you race against.”