Lando Norris has revealed the honest words he used with his McLaren team after the Singapore Grand Prix: “Guys, this is exactly the car I don’t want. We won’t win anymore if it keeps feeling like this because it doesn’t give me what I need.” From that moment, everything changed for the 25-year-old driver.
“Guys, this is exactly the car I don’t want.” A direct and difficult statement, both to say and to hear, but one that may have changed the course of an entire Formula 1 season. That could very well be the case for Lando Norris, who last weekend brought McLaren back to victory after nearly two months and reclaimed the lead in the Drivers’ Championship after 189 days.
After the Dutch Grand Prix in Zandvoort, Norris seemed to have lost all hope of fighting for the title, even though McLaren had one of the strongest cars on the grid. He then went through a tough spell of races. But after Singapore, everything changed. The British driver managed to recover the full 36-point gap that separated him from teammate Oscar Piastri, and following his win in Mexico, he returned to the top of the championship standings with four races remaining in the season.
The turning point after Singapore
Following his dominant victory at the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez, Lando Norris explained what had triggered his turnaround, helping him regain speed, consistency, and confidence behind the wheel.
“In Mexico I just felt good with the car,” he said. “It all comes down to the feeling I have with the MCL39. Last year, I felt really comfortable and could achieve great results. This year, I’ve struggled to get that same connection.”
“The MCL39 is incredibly fast, but it’s still a difficult car to drive,” Lando Norris added. “When you find the right operating window, you can make it work — but that’s something I’ve been struggling with quite a lot over the past few weekends, including in Singapore.”
It was in Singapore that the now-famous debrief took place. “We had our debrief and talked for quite some time,” Lando Norris recalled. “I told them: ‘Guys, this is exactly the car I don’t want. That’s why we can’t win more races. We won’t win in the future if the car keeps failing to give me what I need.’”
“This weekend, the car did a bit more of what I needed it to do,” he continued. “When that happens, I can deliver performances like this one. It’s really that simple.”
A battle to find balance and confidence
Throughout the season, Norris has often struggled to find a good setup and balance with the MCL39, especially at the front end of the car. This ongoing issue has sometimes shaken his confidence, as he admitted.
“At the start of the year, there were definitely moments when I doubted myself,” Lando Norris explained. “I never want to blame the car — and of course, when the car was winning with Oscar, the last thing I could do was use the excuse that mine wasn’t good enough.”
“But I simply couldn’t find confidence in it, and I didn’t know how to make it work,” he added. “Now I’m starting to find better ways to do that. It’s simple. At the end of the day, one good result doesn’t mean much to me. But two, three, four in a row — that’s when it matters.”
“I think the last few months have been really good for me,” Norris concluded. “Max has closed the gap, so I need to keep my head down and keep working.”
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