INTERVIEW: Champion Norris isn’t resting on his laurels ahead of 2026 campaign

During an incredibly short off-season, Norris celebrated and reminisced with family and friends, even as far afield as a small town in Finland, which has become an annual pilgrimage, allowing him to decompress by removing himself from the world at large.

Two months on from his title triumph, Norris found himself addressing the media for the first time since he departed Abu Dhabi in early December, in a small theatre at the McLaren Technology Centre.

Across an enlightening and engaging 37 minutes, Norris covered a variety of topics ahead of a new season in which the defence of his crown will be far from straightforward, given the wide-sweeping changes to the regulations, not least the power units, which will require a very different way of driving for all concerned.

It is arguably unfortunate that such a major overhaul has taken place, because in any other era, given McLaren's relative control last year, Norris would likely go on and win many more, or at least find himself in another enthralling battle with team-mate Oscar Piastri and potentially Verstappen again.

Instead, he goes into the upcoming campaign as in the dark as any of his rivals as to how his car will perform, following the dramatic shift to a 50-50 power ratio comprising combustion and electrical energy. The MGU-H has been removed, and the MGU-K beefed up to deliver 476PS (350kW) from its previous output of 163PS (120kW).

Battery harvesting and deployment will be significant watchwords for this term, ensuring that, even on a qualifying lap, the drivers will have to lift and coast, seemingly anathema to F1 over one lap. Welcome to the new order.

For Norris, he continues to soak in his newfound status as World Champion, the 35^th in the history of the sport, and the 11^th from Britain. It is still taking some getting accustomed to.

"Over the winter break, I tried to be disconnected from everything as much as possible," said Norris, initially addressing the question of him being World Champion. "Obviously, coming back to work and stuff, people say it, and that's always a nice thing.

"But that realisation of when you see it [the No.1] on the car for the first time, seeing it on my helmet, the suit, that kind of makes you rethink everything again, and brings back all the memories. That's the reality, when you finally see it on something, which is cool."

Norris concedes a box has been ticked in his life, and that no matter what happens moving forward, it is something that will never be taken away from him.

"I've still got many more years in Formula 1, and I will still try and get as many more Championships as possible. If I never do, I'm so happy. I achieved one.

"Twenty years I spent from starting karting to last year, trying to achieve what I achieved, what we all achieved as a team, and then my group and my family, what we achieved last year. It was a lot of time and effort, singular focus, and then it's done."

"I guess not many people in life get to achieve that end goal, their life goal. But that was it. If you ever see me not smiling, just give me a punch or something to remind me. I'm very happy, I'm proud. It's something I'll always take with me forever."

As Norris stated, winning one title does not mean he will rest on his laurels, though he appreciates that, even in being a Champion, he is far from the finished article. He only has to look at the driver who was runner-up, and who had won the previous four Championships before him.

"It's quite clear that I have a different mentality and a different approach to Max, let's say," said Norris. "There are a lot of things that I still admire in Max, and I wish I had a little bit more of that, here and there, but I'm always trying to improve things. I know there are still areas where I am not at the level I need to be, and it's still a good level.

"But when you're fighting these guys, you need to be close to perfection. So, there are still plenty of things I want to work on, to be better at, but the baseline level of where I'm at now is already pretty good."

We all know Norris has the talent. That was evident last season in winning seven Grands Prix, and doing enough late on to overhaul a fading Piastri and keep at bay an on-fire Verstappen, who was on the podium in the final ten races — six times on the top step.

The key to his title defence will be the new-look MCL60, which was slightly late to the private party at Barcelona's Circuit de Catalunya last month when all the teams bar Williams conducted running on three of the five days, as had been agreed in advance.

Norris and Piastri amassed 287 laps between them, albeit 215 shy of Mercedes' mammoth total. Although Norris was third quickest, behind Ferrari's Lewis Hamilton and Mercedes' George Russell, little can be read into the times, given they were such early days.

The concern, though, for Norris and the other 21 drivers, will be battery management, with the British driver describing it as the "biggest challenge".

"It's not simple," he said. "Explaining it in quite simple terms, you have a very powerful battery that doesn't last very long, so it's knowing how to use it at the right time, how much of that power you use, how you split that up around the lap, and how you can recover the battery as well as possible."

"That's when it comes down to using the gears, hitting the right revs. We've got some turbo lag now, which we've never really had before, so these little things have crept back in. In a perfect world, I probably wouldn't have that in a racing car, but it's just a small one.

"Sometimes you have these different challenges. Sometimes it suits one person more than the other. Our challenge as a team, as drivers, as people, but also for the engine manufacturer [Mercedes] is to try and be on top of that as much as possible."

And then there is the boost button, allowing the drivers to unleash the full power of the battery to help with overtaking. Norris said it "can be very powerful in certain places that are limited", and it "can have a big effect".

"The boost button is the biggest factor in all of this," he stated. "When you want to see big differences in speeds, a lot of it's going to be solely based on someone pressing the boost button and taking advantage of maybe having more energy if they're within a second.

"But at the same time, the more energy you use, the more you try to make up. As a driver, you're more limited in what you can do on the steering wheel to help with a lot of these functions. But the main one is, you press overtake. The rest, you have to drive in a manner where you use the throttle pedal to try and recover a bit more."

It means the collaboration between driver and race engineer will be paramount this season, ensuring that what will become the new basics are handled correctly.

Despite F1 entering its latest new era, seemingly hindering McLaren, Norris has every confidence that he and the team can defend their titles.

"I certainly believe in my team," said Norris. "They won the last two Constructors' Championships for a reason. That's an important thing as a team, that we all believe we can continue the very strong results that we've had over the last two years into a completely new regulation change.

"But we also see there are people just as quick as us, and potentially quicker already from the first test. Mercedes looked very strong, Red Bull and Ferrari looked very strong. It'll be a learning curve, but I have strong confidence in myself and in my team."   

Images courtesy of Getty Images.