Lando Norris on his transformation to “prove myself wrong” and cement his F1 legacy

Norris may not have taken the chequered flag on the night, an honour that belonged to Max Verstappen, but he can at least lay claim to knowing exactly how the Red Bull driver has felt the last four years in winning the title.

It was the culmination of an arduous season for Norris, one that started with a victory in the season-opening race in Australia, but as team-mate Oscar Piastri started to take a grip, and as the mistakes began to mount and undermine Norris' campaign, his lifetime's ambition was in danger of unravelling.

When Norris retired from the Dutch Grand Prix with a rare technical problem, and as he sat head bowed on a grassy bank overlooking the Zandvoort circuit, likely contemplating a difficult title challenge from that moment as he fell 34 points adrift of Piastri, the 'Lando of old' might have crumbled.

What we were unaware of at the time, that only emerged when Norris addressed the media post-title triumph, was that long before that end-of-August day the 26-year-old had taken steps behind the scenes earlier in the year to address what he saw as his failings that were proving his downfall.

Norris, renowned for wearing his heart on his sleeve and publicly castigating himself for his errors — which for many observers was a sign of weakness, but was simply him being himself — had been plugging the holes in his armoury with a variety of people to help him understand and overcome the more difficult moments.

Zandvoort was one of those moments. But he did not collapse. Instead, Norris was fortified by his team who helped him rebuild and deliver over the remaining nine races, even if Verstappen came close to staging what would have likely been viewed as the greatest comeback of all-time, had he completed it from a position of 104 points adrift following his home grand prix.

By the chequered flag in Abu Dhabi Norris had just done enough, beating Verstappen by two points, with Piastri 13 adrift after the Australian, who led the standings for 15 races, saw his season spectacularly fall apart.

Once the tears had dried, Norris laid bare the defining steps that ensured his name joins that of the greats of the sport.

"I had a lot of tough moments at the beginning of the season," he said. "I had great moments. Winning the first race in Australia certainly gave me a big boost. But quite quickly, I did not have the best run of results, and Oscar did an incredible job, and was consistently ahead of me.

"It got tricky at times. At the end of the day, it shows that consistency over a year is what helps achieve what we've achieved, but those tricky moments, you’ve got to learn from them, acknowledge them, understand them."

And then came the salient point. "I've had to go above and beyond in terms of expanding my group, the people I work with on the track, and more so off the track," Norris explained.

"The number of people that I have in my corner, not from McLaren but externally: my friends, my family, my coaches, people that help me think in better ways and perform in better ways. So many people allowed me to go out, be calmer and try not to acknowledge the pressure, or just perform under pressure and have the second half of the season that I had.

"If I look back on it, my first half of the season, not the most impressive. Certainly, there were times I made some mistakes, some bad judgments. But how I managed to turn all of that and have the second half of the season I had, is what makes me very proud, that I've been able to prove myself wrong.

"There were doubts I had at the beginning of the year, and I proved myself wrong. That's something that makes me very happy."

Norris made it clear his Championship success was his "way of saying thank you" to all those involved for "all of their hard work, [and] all of the stuff" those people have done for him, not least, his mother and father.

Rather than Zandvoort, Norris confirmed the turning point was his "struggles" after winning in Australia, even though he was runner-up in China and Japan, and third in Bahrain, before finishing fourth in Saudi Arabia, a result that allowed Piastri to depose him from top spot, and remain there for the next six months.

"I was like, 'Alright, my way is not working,'" he said. "'I’ve got to understand things differently, to speak to more people, to understand what I'm thinking, and why I’m thinking it. Why am I doing this? Why am I getting tense in qualifying? Why am I making the decisions that I’m making?' Whatever it may be.

"Certainly, the bad run of results and lack of performance — not speed, because I think the speed’s always there — but lack of putting things together when I had the capability of putting things together, opened up the doors to go and understand that, OK, I need to do more than just try again next weekend. I need to try and understand things on a deeper level mentally'.

"That opened up understanding of myself more, understanding things more at a Championship level, that that’s the level I’ve got to be at. Certainly, the struggles turned into strength."

You sense what happened on Sunday was a real coming-of-age moment for Norris, one that not only dispelled his own doubts, but of the many who felt that, whilst he is undoubtedly talented, there were flaws within him, as a driver and a person, that were holding him back.

Make no mistake, Norris just got over the line, given Verstappen's phenomenal charge which saw the Red Bull driver win six of the final nine races. But with new-found belief and confidence, Norris will certainly prove a formidable foe moving forward, and regardless of how McLaren emerges from one of the biggest regulatory changes in F1's history, Norris knows he will head into next year as a different driver.

"I feel I'm a better driver now, certainly, than I was at the beginning of the season. When I’m racing against Max, a four-time World Champion, when I’m racing against Oscar, a guy who at some point in the future will probably beat me and be a World Champion, I’m performing.

"I’m having to perform against the best in the world, and I look forward to plenty more times like that.

"I need to understand what I can do better, how I can do better, and how I can perform more consistently against them and learn from them. I feel like I did that this year, and I've got to do that even more next year if I want to retain what we've been able to achieve this year."

Whatever the future brings, at least Norris will go into 2026 with a renewed sense of purpose, the number one on his car, and able to declare himself a Formula 1 World Champion. That will never change, even if he has.

Images courtesy of Getty Images.