Lando Norris<\/a> came into last season as one of the favourites to take the fight to Verstappen.<\/p>\nIn what proved to be a tense 2025 season, in which Norris clawed his way back from behind team-mate Oscar Piastri in the first half of the campaign, the Briton emerged as world champion by just two points.<\/p>\n
Intra-team tensions between Norris and Piastri, as McLaren navigated its way through \u2018papaya rules\u2019, at times led to outbursts from the former on occasion.<\/p>\n
Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n
Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n
Jenson Button, the 2009 champion and the driver Norris replaces as Britain\u2019s newest title winner, admits he felt this would ultimately be the McLaren driver\u2019s undoing.<\/p>\n
\u201cLando wears his heart on his sleeve,\u201d Button told BBC Somerset.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd, I have to admit, I thought that would be his downfall.<\/p>\n
\u201cHis talent is beyond question. His speed is simply incredible. I still remember vividly when he completed his first test in the McLaren in Hungary. He was super-fast right from the start.\u201d<\/p>\n
After winning the opening round of the 2025 season in Australia, Norris didn’t stand on the top step of the podium again until the Monaco Grand Prix.<\/p>\n
Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n
Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n
He won five more times after this, in Austria, Britain, Hungary, Mexico and Brazil.<\/p>\n
McLaren will retain Norris and Piastri for the 2026 season, as F1 switches to new cars.<\/p>\n
The Woking outfit will unveil its 2026 car on 9 February.<\/p>\n
Unveiling will begin on 15 January in America, when Red Bull and Racing Bulls pull the covers off of their 2026 liveries.<\/p>\n
Pre-season testing begins on 26-30 January in Barcelona behind closed doors, with McLaren hoping it has gotten the new regulations right to maintain its current competitive advantage.<\/p>\n
Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n
Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n
Subscribe to our F1 Newsletter<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One-time Formula 1 world champion Jenson Button admits he thought Lando Norris \u201cwearing his heart on his sleeve\u201d…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":404596,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,1737,913,806,805,803,804,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-404595","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-motosport","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-lando-norris","11":"tag-mclaren","12":"tag-motor","13":"tag-motor-sports","14":"tag-motosport","15":"tag-motosports","16":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404595","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=404595"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404595\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/404596"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=404595"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=404595"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=404595"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}