Follow us on Google Discover Lando Norris delivered one of his best qualifying performances at the Mexican Grand Prix on Saturday. It comes at the perfect time as he hunts down McLaren teammate Oscar Piastri in the title race.
Norris looked like the fastest driver throughout Saturday’s running, starting in FP3 and continuing in Q1 and Q2. On numerous occasions this year, he hasn’t delivered in the top 10 shoot-out, but here he saw off a surprise late challenge from Charles Leclerc.
His final lap was nearly three-tenths quicker than Leclerc, and even the British driver himself was in disbelief at his pace over the radio. More importantly, championship leader Piastri was only seventh, an alarming six-tenths off the pace.
With Verstappen fifth, this is a vital opportunity for a driver who’s quietly growing in confidence. Starts have let him down before, and the run to turn one in Mexico is the longest of the season.
Lando Norris knows he can beat Oscar Piastri if he’s ‘relaxed’ in the McLaren
Some declared that Norris was out of the title race when he retired from the Dutch GP with a chassis problem and Piastri won. The failure cost him 18 points, with his teammate increasing his lead to 34.
But since then, Norris has outscored the sister car by 20, beating him in all but one competitive session. He’s starting to reassert himself at the team where he was the lead driver until the start of 2025.
Speaking on Friday, Sky Germany pundit Ralf Schumacher suggested that the DNF in the Netherlands was actually a ‘game-changer’. Norris altered his approach and ‘realised’ that a more relaxed approach in the cockpit was the key to beating Piastri.
“Zandvoort was definitely a game-changer for him,” said Schumacher. “After that, he realised he could be faster than Piastri if he was just a bit more relaxed. He’ll have worked on that, and I think he now has his routines that help him.”
Norris attempted to challenge Verstappen for the 2024 title, and while he never got genuinely close, his brief window in contention may give him a slight edge on Piastri, who was a distant fourth.
Karun Chandhok concerned by key detail in Oscar Piastri’s Mexican Grand Prix telemetry
Turning away from the psychological and towards the mechanical, Karun Chandhok pointed out that Norris now seems to be faster than Piastri through high-speed corners. This goes against the ‘trend’ at McLaren pre-Austin.
As Chandhok explained to Sky UK, this has helped Norris pull away from Piastri through the sweeping sector two at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez. It could also be crucial in Qatar next month, though the other track layouts are more varied.
“That is something which will be of concern for Oscar Piastri,” said Chandhok. “Generally, the trend is, Lando’s been very strong in slower, medium-speed corners.
“But in Austin, Oscar was slower in the high speed for really the first time this season. It’s interesting to hear Bernie [Collins, Sky colleague] say here as well he’s slower in the middle sector of the lap.”
Jacques Villeneuve believes Norris is now the stronger McLaren driver. The gap was 14 points coming into the weekend and is now poised to shrink further.
McLaren have been urged to favour one driver to maximise their chances of beating Verstappen. The message from across the team is that this won’t happen, and it would be especially difficult to choose one over the other at this stage.