Online Reporter
LANDO Norris said his dominant victory in the Mexico City Grand Prix on Sunday has boosted his confidence that he can win his first world title this year.
The Briton’s lights-to-flag victory put him into the championship lead for the first time since he lost it to McLaren team-mate Oscar Piastri after the Australian’s victory in the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, the fifth race of the season back in April.
More than that, though, it was confirmation of a strong run of form by Norris. He has clawed back 35 points on Piastri in the five races since he retired from the Dutch Grand Prix with a fuel-line failure at the end of August.
“It gives me confidence,” said Norris. “One race performing well I don’t think means anything. Two, three or four in a row does, so I think the last few months I’ve been good.”
It was also a timely reminder that, with four races now remaining as the season approaches its climax, McLaren have been the team of the year, not Red Bull.
The talk coming into the weekend was all about the threat Max Verstappen posed after three victories and a second place in the past four races had seen the Dutchman cut Piastri’s lead by 64 points.
It did not take a maths genius to work out that if Verstappen kept that up, he would win his fifth consecutive world title at the end of the season.
But, after a few races in which they felt they had underperformed as a team, Norris delivered a statement win for McLaren – and himself.
The 25-year-old was in total control of the weekend from the minute he hit the track for the start of second practice, having handed his car to Mexican Indycar driver Pato O’Ward for the first session on Friday as one of the team’s mandatory rookie sessions.
He went on to take pole with one of the stand-out laps of the season. He brushed off the threat of the slipstream from those behind on the long run to the first corner and dodged the mayhem that unfolded behind.
The only time he lost the lead was as a result of Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc cutting the third corner in the midst of his battle with team-mate Lewis Hamilton just behind Norris.
Once Leclerc had made amends for passing Norris illegally by letting the McLaren back past on the run to Turn Four, Norris disappeared into the distance.
“In a way, I think it’s just my best performance through a whole weekend,” added Norris. “You know, all my laps in qualifying, all my practice, all my race.”
Norris has been through the mill this year. He started his campaign with a win in Australia, but Piastri then took control of the season and had won four races before Norris took a second.
Norris could not get on with the car, which was not giving him the feelings he needed to be quick. But, following a tweak to the front suspension for the Canadian Grand Prix in June, he has slowly been working his way back into it.
His win this weekend was his fourth since then. In that time, Piastri has taken only two – the last one in Zandvoort when Norris retired.
At the time, that looked like a body blow to Norris’ hopes. Piastri had been so convincing, so solid, that making up that sort of margin looked impossible.
Norris said: “You put that behind you, right? You forget about that as much as you can, and you just focus on every race coming up.
“Every weekend’s new and you have a fresh start to try new things and try to do better than before. And I feel like that’s what I’ve done very well this weekend.”
As Norris has found his form, Piastri started to go off the boil a little straight after Zandvoort. Norris was quicker in Italy. Piastri had a nightmare weekend in Baku, crashing three times and jumping the start.
There was a bit of controversy at the start in Singapore, when Norris barged past into third place. But Piastri has been simply slow over the past two races in the US and Mexico.
“The last few have been decent,” said Norris. “But still a long way to go, so I just have to keep doing what I’m doing, keep trying to be consistent against some very quick guys around me. And, yeah, I think that’ll be good.
“But it doesn’t mean because I’m ahead or behind or whatever that I have to drive or do anything differently.”
Norris admitted after the race in Mexico that there had been times earlier this year when he “certainly did” doubt himself.
“When the car was winning, and Oscar was winning, the last thing I could do was use the excuse that my car wasn’t good enough,” he said.
“I wasn’t getting to grips and finding a way to make it work and I’m finding a better way to make it work now, so it’s as simple as that.”
It is now Piastri facing that feeling, after two difficult weekends during which he has been a fair way off the pace.
“For some reason, the last couple of weekends have required a very different way of driving,” said Piastri.
