Will Lando Norris' faith in McLaren pay off this season?

After a career best finish of second in the world drivers' championship last season, Lando Norris will eagerly be looking to clinch his second championship with McLaren, albeit it in his personal capacity. 

Norris has been with McLaren since his youth racing days and made his debut in 2019. But it has been a hard journey since then, with what almost seemed to be never ending bumps in the road. 

This was mainly due to the challenges the team had with delivering a fast car, capable of sticking around the bends, to Norris on a Sunday. 

At the beginning of the 2023 season, Mclaren CEO Zak Brown said the team had missed development targets for the car prior to pre-season testing in Bahrain. 

Team principal Andrea Stella said they needed to address aerodynamic efficiency, tyre consumption, and iron out issues relating to the balance of the car. 

Going into 2023, Stella said the car’s aerodynamic objectives were not met, which meant the 25-year-old British driver had to handle a draggy car that season. 

Mclaren was also open with both of their drivers, Norris and Oscar Piastri, that they would only really be able to compete with the top of the pack by mid-season. 

Norris said driving without the purpose of competing for the world title was almost a waste of his time, according to Netflix’s Drive to Survive series. 

Norris 6th on driver standing in 2023, with a podium best 2nd place on six occasions, in Hungary, Singapore, Great Britain, Japan, USA and Brazil. 

Amid troubles with the car that season, there were also rumours swirling around Norris’ possible move to Red Bull, which was not down played by CEO Christian Horner by any means at all. 

“Look, in this sport, there are always rumours. But would we like to have Norris at Red Bull. Absolutely. He and Max have a really good relationship and I think that could work,” Horner said on Drive to Survive. 

Horner spotted Norris’ unhappiness at Mclaren because of the car challenges they faced ahead of the season, as well as his first two starts in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia - where he finished 17th. 

This put CEO Zak Brown between a rock and a hard place, trying to keep his star driver and put him in a fast car before time runs out on his faith in the orange outfit. 

Brown, Stella and the rest of the engineers at Mclaren managed to shock the rest of the paddock that season and delivered a mad-quick Mclaren, that even had Lewis Hamilton in reverence. 

Norris took that momentum into 2024 and claimed his first F1 victory in Miami in a newly built MCL38 race car. 

The young Brit went on to beat his friend and F1’s most dominant driver currently, Max Verstappen, on his home turf to win the Dutch GP. 

Norris snatched two more victories that season in Singapore and the last race of the year in Abu Dhabi, to finish on a season high he’s never reached before.

 It was also clear that Brown’s team had found a winning recipe for the Mclaren, as Oscar Piastri came 4th in driver standings, ahead of Hamilton, Carlos Sainz and Sergio Perez. 

The MCL38 was, undoubtedly, the fastest car of the season, also winning Mclaren the Driver Constructors Championship. 

Now hunting his first ever World Title, Norris thinks the MCL39 is a championship winning car but had some concerns in pre-testing. 

Speculation on social media hinted that Mclaren had built another rocket ship for 2025 but Stella quelled the talk, saying it was too early for such predictions without the necessary data to back it up. 

“The indications here in Bahrain seem to suggest that the car currently interacts well with the tyres, but under very specific conditions. We need to be careful not to read too much into these results,” Stella told a reliable F1 source. 

After testing in Bahrain was complete, Norris said he was looking forward to heading back to Mclaren’s headquarters in the UK to review the data and work on the simulator. 

“It's been a positive test. Plenty of things to work on. Both Oscar and I were happy with certain things, not so happy with other things. So yes, it’s going to be a tough season. We’re looking forward to it and keeping our heads down, keeping focused,” Norris said.