Luck denied Lando Norris a deserved victory in Madrid, but the Spanish Grand Prix once again underlined the excellent form of the reigning Formula 1 world champion. The McLaren driver is performing at an extremely high level and reaping the rewards of a new working method developed together with the team.
Lando Norris’s development began months before the world title he won last year. Becoming champion undoubtedly strengthened his confidence and self-belief, but Andrea Stella believes the most important change happened earlier, when McLaren began working with its driver in a more systematic way during the difficult opening phase of the 2025 season.
Andrea Stella identifies Lando Norris’s 2025 turning point
Following Lando Norris’s performance in Madrid, Andrea Stella’s comments after the Dutch Grand Prix have become particularly relevant again.
“I think Lando is driving at a world champion level,” Andrea Stella said. “As I always say, what I like most about him is that throughout his Formula 1 journey he keeps improving. In particular, I think something clicked at the beginning of the 2025 season. It wasn’t simply a click, but a way of working with and for Lando, which we are now also adopting with Oscar.”
According to the McLaren team principal, that approach has produced continuous gains rather than one dramatic transformation.
“It’s an approach that has led Lando to keep improving. It’s almost as if I see him getting stronger race after race.”
One of the clearest examples is qualifying. Lando Norris has taken three of the last four pole positions available, despite single-lap performance having been one of his main weaknesses at the start of the previous season.
The Briton struggled at the time to feel the front end of the MCL39 clearly enough, making it harder to extract the maximum from the car over one lap.
Lando Norris turns qualifying weakness into a major strength
“At the moment, Lando is capable of maximising performance in qualifying configuration,” Andrea Stella explained. “If we think back to the beginning of 2025, this had become a little bit of a concern, which he then overcame.”
Lando Norris’s consistency during races, by contrast, was never seriously questioned. One of his strongest qualities has been his sensitivity with the tyres, particularly when grip levels become difficult to manage.
That ability was one of the reasons Lando Norris won the Dutch Grand Prix, where he interpreted the hard tyre better than his rivals while others struggled with the compound.
Andrea Stella highlighted that strength directly: “When there are low-grip conditions in the race and the car is sliding, I think he is a master.”
The development has helped McLaren remain a central force in the competitive order, with the latest results and championship picture available through the Formula 1 driver standings and the latest McLaren news.
World title accelerated Lando Norris’s progress but did not create it
Winning the 2025 Formula 1 World Championship inevitably provided a major boost to Lando Norris’s confidence. Andrea Stella, however, believes it would be too simplistic to attribute his development entirely to becoming world champion.
“The world title was an important stage in his journey, but that journey started after the first part of the 2025 season, when Lando had struggled to use all of his potential.”
The real turning point came through the difficulties Lando Norris encountered early in 2025, when he struggled to feel the front tyres through the steering wheel and his hands.
McLaren responded by modifying the front suspension and beginning an extended programme of analysis with Lando Norris to understand how both the set-up and his driving could be adapted.
Those difficulties ultimately helped the driver and team improve the way they communicated, expressed requirements and translated those needs into technical solutions.
“We started working with Lando in a more systematic, more organic way, using all the resources around Lando,” Andrea Stella explained. “From there we began a journey whose real result was not so much the world title, because that depends on many variables, but this continuous growth.”
“Every weekend Lando arrives a little more mature and complete than the previous one. The world title was therefore certainly an accelerator of this process, but it was not the crucial point. The trajectory is what matters.”
McLaren now applies lessons from Lando Norris to Oscar Piastri
The working method developed during 2025 continues to benefit Lando Norris this season. He has managed to adapt his driving to Formula 1’s new generation of cars even though he has described them as not particularly well suited to his natural style.
Oscar Piastri has found that transition more difficult, with the performance gap between the two McLaren drivers becoming increasingly visible.
Andrea Stella explained: “From a technical and driving point of view, we already saw with Oscar last year that when there are low-grip conditions, as was the case in Mexico or Austin in 2025, he needs to adapt the way he drives, the way he thinks and his expectations.”
“That requires a mental effort that can cost him a couple of tenths of a second, because he has to process things rather than drive purely on instinct.”
The hope for Oscar Piastri is that his current difficulties can eventually produce the same kind of progress that McLaren achieved with Lando Norris. For the reigning world champion, the demanding period at the beginning of 2025 did not simply expose a weakness; it helped create the working method that has allowed him to become a more complete driver.
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