Norris reveals fresh approach to F1 title bid after ‘smelling’ championship chance

Lando Norris is confident he knows what is required this year in his quest to dethrone Max Verstappen as F1 drivers’ champion.

There was a time last season when Norris felt the opportunity to win the title was “within reach”, and that he could “smell” it given how the campaign was playing out.

At one stage, with Verstappen on a 10-race winless run, his worst drought for four years, Norris was within 44 points of the Red Bull driver, only for the 27-year-old to deliver a performance for the ages with his victory in the São Paulo Grand Prix from 17th on the grid.

Norris ultimately finished 63 points adrift, albeit compensated by the fact that McLaren became constructors’ champions for the first time in 26 years.

The goal for Norris this year is naturally to go one step further and win the drivers’ title.

‘As much as I want to win the constructors’ every single year, the selfish one is to win the drivers’ championship,” said Norris, speaking to Mastercard CMCO, Raja Rajamannar, at the World Economic Forum in Davos.

“You need a good team behind you, and that’s exactly what I’ve got.

“I came close-ish last year, I was still always a bit far behind, but I could smell it. I had that feeling of like, ‘Okay, this is kind of what it’s like’. It was within reach.

“This year, I need to fix a few things, work on some things, and come back stronger, and that’s what I’m ready to do.”

McLaren has ‘done the opposite’ says Norris

Norris will be aided in his quest by the fact that McLaren, far from resting on any laurels, has “done the opposite” from what might have been expected in light of last year’s success, and there will be no complacency.

“That’s what can happen very easily to a lot of athletes, or anyone in the world, is once things start to go well, you can easily relax, and it can drift away from you very quickly,” said Norris.

“The one thing we’ve realised as a team is now we are there we want to make it easy for ourselves. We want to keep going so that we can win easily these races and not have them as difficult as they were last year.

“So the team has remained very focused. It would have been easy for all of them to get back and just go, ‘Ah, we’re good, we’ve done it now. Let’s just relax’. They’ve done the opposite.

“They’ve gone, ‘We want even more’, and they’ve worked even harder to try and find new things for this year.

“They’ve turned these expectations into positive things, into more motivation and more drive to want it again.”