All set to restart the season
The Dutch Grand Prix this weekend will kick off the second half of the 2025 Formula 1 season, with Lando Norris aiming to close the points gap to his McLaren teammate Oscar Piastri, who currently leads the championship. The season resumes at Zandvoort, the very track where last year the British driver ended Max Verstappen’s uninterrupted dominance from 2021 to 2023. “I felt good before, and I feel good now,” Norris commented during the drivers’ press conference. “Clearly, I experienced some more difficult moments at the start of the year. I started well, but then there were some complicated periods, and we worked a lot with the team to improve and get back on track. We managed to do it, and it was nice to find good results again, but there have been, are, and will always be things to improve, trying to become stronger. At the end of the day, this is F1; I feel good and ready to restart a second part of the season that will probably be long, challenging, and demanding, but also exciting.”
Open battles, and not just within McLaren
As the championship enters this phase, McLaren and its drivers will be seen as the team and drivers to beat, with Lando Norris also aware of the competitiveness of their rivals. “Clearly, we need to focus on the championship, and we will do that race by race. I think that’s the right approach, and we want to win. I want to aim for maximum points, but it will never be easy. We will always have strong competitors; at Budapest, the Ferraris were extremely strong, and George (Russell) was not too far behind. We expect more tough battles with strong rivals, but we also expect some exciting challenges within the team, between me and Oscar, and I’m looking forward to that.”
Norris underlined the increasing threat of competitors during the final ten races, a year after his victory at Zandvoort. “As a team, we have been stronger this year, but I think the others have closed the gap in recent races. What made us strong is a characteristic where others have caught up, but we’ve improved in other areas. I don’t expect a 20-second victory or anything like that. I would be happy if it happened and will try to replicate such a result, but I don’t expect any race to be easy from now on. We will approach each race aiming to win, expecting a team double, and that will be our mission, but I don’t think we can sit back and assume a race will be simple. We always have to expect a tough challenge, and if it isn’t, we’ll take it as a bonus.”
Learning from early-season mistakes
While awaiting the season restart, Lando Norris reflected on some of his early-season mistakes, without calling them ‘regrets’. “At certain moments, I could have certainly made better decisions, that’s true. The first that comes to mind is the Sprint qualifying in China, where I could have avoided the lock-up. I lost 8 points there, and in Canada, if I had been a bit smarter and waited a little longer without taking too many risks, I might not have lost a significant haul of points. But I don’t regret those moments, because sometimes life goes in the wrong direction, but you learn from those moments to improve in the future.”
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