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Lando Norris has made it clear he is ready to take the fight to Max Verstappen if the two drivers are once more competing for the Formula One world championship when the new season begins in March. The British driver said he relished the chance to take on the Dutchman and was confident with the right machinery he could stamp his authority on a challenge for the title.
Norris, who was second behind Verstappen last season, taking four wins, was speaking at the unveiling of his McLaren team’s new challenger for 2025, the MCL39. At Silverstone, where he drove the car for the first time during a promotional filming day, the 25-year-old insisted he would face down Verstappen’s uncompromising style.
“I need to get my elbows out, need to show him that I am not going to willingly give him any positions,” he said. “But I am also going to be a smart driver.”
Last year McLaren challenged Verstappen and Red Bull after upgrades deployed at the Miami GP proved to be enormously effective and where Norris took his debut F1 win. He fought Verstappen for the title but was unable to overcome the points advantage the Dutchman had amassed early in the season.
The two went wheel to wheel with one another repeatedly, notably in Austria, Austin and Mexico, with the Dutchman uncompromising in his approach, including controversially forcing Norris off track. However the British driver was also admitted he had made mistakes.
“There’s some things where I just didn’t do a good enough job,” he said. “I wasn’t simply quite at the level that I need to be to race against Max, but when we’re talking about that, we’re talking about probably going up against one of the hardest attacking-defence guys you can ever go up against.”
Norris, who is entering his seventh season in F1 this year, was nonetheless confident in the lessons learned from 2024 that he knew what it would take to challenge Verstappen.
“You have to be a smart driver to go up against Max, so I look forward to it,” he said. “I like those moments when you have to make those quick decisions, and it’s always a lot harder when you’re in the car than when you re-watch it after and you just think: ‘why the hell have I done that, what an idiot’.”
“At the same time, I don’t need to go out and just prove something to him. I don’t need to take any unnecessary risks, and I don’t need to go down trying. I don’t think you have to do anything special to try and beat Max. You have to be smart and also think of the long game sometimes.”
Norris and his teammate, the Australian Oscar Piastri, did return consistently strong results last season ensuring McLaren took their first constructors’ championship for 26 years.
The team principal, Andrea Stella, who has been instrumental in returning McLaren to the sharp end of the grid, was confident the British driver was ready to fight for the title if they deliver a competitive car.
“He definitely has all the qualities, the skills, the mindset to become a world champion,” he said. “I have seen Lando growing through [last] season at a very fast rate. He was already an incredible driver and he showed it immediately in Miami as soon as he had the car to win in, he delivered. He has been a very consistent driver, look at the number of podiums and points scored, he scored as much as Max from Miami onwards.
Last season with Norris in position to challenge Verstappen in the latter stages, McLaren did employ team orders on Piastri to favour the British driver but Stella reiterated the team would open the season once more on a level playing field, allowing them to race.
“I look forward to having this kind of challenge, it means we are doing well as a team, the drivers are doing well, and the car is competitive and we did a good job,” he said. “In terms of how we will manage that, we start with equal opportunities with our racing principles and good talks with our drivers.”
McLaren will reveal the new season’s livery, alongside the other nine teams, at the F1 75 showcase event to be held in London next Tuesday. Testing will take place in Bahrain on 26-28 February with the season opener in Melbourne on 16 March.
