To date Lando Norris has scored 34 podiums, 6 race wins, 11 pole positions, and 17 fastest laps. It’s been a meteoric rise for him, and an expected one. So known for his heroics in a sub-par car he was dubbed ‘Last-lap Lando’ for his tremendous driving. There is no doubt that Norris has sublime talent and skill and the speed to boot.
But. Since he became a bonafide championship contender there is one glaring point that has become impossible to ignore. In 2025, under extreme and relentless pressure from his McLaren teammate Oscar Piastri and, to a degree, Max Verstappen, Norris hasn’t risen to the occasion. Instead, his qualifying results points to a driver making mistakes too easily. Sure, it’s easy making such a comment from the cheap seats. But it isn’t a means to degrade Norris, instead it’s a keen observation, born from more than two decades of experience, of what makes a driver a champion and what doesn’t. The number of mistakes Norris has made in final session of qualifying in 2025 is, by itself, enough to raise some eyebrows about is readiness to be a Formula 1 champion. What is more telling is that in 2024 the qualifying head-to-head between was dominated by Norris, 20 – 4 over Piastri. In fact, there is an important metric in which Norris didn’t dominate Piastri last year. Wins? 4-2 in favour of Norris. Fastest laps? 19-4 Norris. Points scored? 374 Norris, 292 Piastri. Fast forward to 2025 and the picture looks starkly different. Piastri has won five races to Norris’s two race wins and currently leads the quali head-to-head 4-6. Piastri is clearly a hugely talented driver, but it wasn’t him that was being vaunted as the championship contender. Cool and ultra calm Piastri has almost come from nowhere to know be the team leader at McLaren. Whatever may be said in the press this cannot be feeling good for Norris.
Norris’s errors extend beyond qualifying—and it’s this broader pattern that raises real doubts about whether he has what it takes to be a world champion. It’s the inability to find a way past competitors in a clean manner, suggesting that wheel-to-wheel racing isn’t his forte. The latest incident with Piastri, in Canada, is a perfect example. The gap going into turn one was always a closing one, there was never a route to get in front of Piastri. You’d have to ask if a Verstappen or Hamilton or Leclerc would’ve made the same move. And the answer is probably going to be a categorical no. This lack of judgment from Norris could be telling are demonstrates an impatience. It speaks to a driver that is feeling the weight of expectation, the pressure of knowing that this might be his best shot at a title.
And this is the worry: if Norris cannot maintain composure in these pivotal moments, especially when racing wheel-to-wheel with the drivers who matter most, he may never fully close the gap to those who already have championship pedigree. His talent is not in questions, by any means. But his judgement is. That remains the obstacle between Norris and greatness. Can he address it in time? Yes, most probably. But he not only needs the right person in his ear he also has to acknowledge that there is a shortcoming in his driving. The good news is that Norris has always been a self-critical driver and with much of the championship still ahead there is more than enough time for him to step up in a moment that could define his entire career.
