{"id":466072,"date":"2026-02-08T08:27:17","date_gmt":"2026-02-08T08:27:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/466072\/"},"modified":"2026-02-08T08:27:17","modified_gmt":"2026-02-08T08:27:17","slug":"has-winning-the-f1-title-changed-lando-norris-outlook-on-2026-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/466072\/","title":{"rendered":"Has winning the F1 title changed Lando Norris\u2019 outlook on 2026 season?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>McLaren\u2019s Lando Norris says he doesn\u2019t \u201cfeel any different\u201d coming into the 2026 season as Formula 1 world champion, while he approaches it \u201cwith the same ambition\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>The British driver prevailed in a dramatic title battle in 2025 that was pushed all the way to the finale in Abu Dhabi.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.crash.net\/f1\/racer\/912058\/lando-norris\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Lando Norris<\/a> faced a tricky first half to the year, as McLaren team-mate <a href=\"https:\/\/www.crash.net\/f1\/racer\/1014409\/oscar-piastri\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Oscar Piastri<\/a> looked to have the measure of him, before his form improved in the second half.<\/p>\n<p>As well as Piastri, Norris then had to stave off the growing challenge from Red Bull and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.crash.net\/f1\/racer\/852\/max-verstappen\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Max Verstappen<\/a> in the second part of the campaign, with the British driver ultimately winning the title by just two points.<\/p>\n<p>Norris became McLaren\u2019s first world champion since Lewis Hamilton in 2008, as well as the first British title winner since Hamilton in 2020.<\/p>\n<p> Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n<p> Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n<p>Coming into the new season as the number one, Norris doesn\u2019t believe his ambitions have changed.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHonestly, no,\u201d he replied during a McLaren media event if he has had to reset coming into the new season as champion.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAs much as I say that, I don\u2019t feel any different coming into this season.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI still feel like I just want to go out and win. I feel like that\u2019s my baseline feeling is consistently that.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think it\u2019s just more at the end of the day, if I don\u2019t achieve something again, I always will have something that I\u2019m proud about and I know is a huge achievement.<\/p>\n<p> Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n<p> Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt certainly hasn\u2019t taken away any ambition or desire to do it again, or to come into this season and not care about it.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf anything, I enjoyed last year a lot and I want to do it again, just hopefully with a longer off-season than last year.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI just have that feeling that if one day I don\u2019t achieve something again, I have this to fall back on and I\u2019ll always be proud, no matter what people say.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut I\u2019ve come into this year with the same ambition, which is to try and win again.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>McLaren\u2019s 2026 season got underway last week at the Barcelona shakedown, as it put its new car through its paces.<\/p>\n<p> Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n<p> Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n<p>It will be back in action next week at the official Bahrain test, while its official season launch is slated for 9 February, where it will unveil its new livery.<\/p>\n<p>Subscribe to our F1 Newsletter<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"McLaren\u2019s Lando Norris says he doesn\u2019t \u201cfeel any different\u201d coming into the 2026 season as Formula 1 world&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":466073,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[64,63,817,813,816,1737,913,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-466072","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-formula-1","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-f1","11":"tag-formula-1","12":"tag-formula1","13":"tag-lando-norris","14":"tag-mclaren","15":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466072","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=466072"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466072\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/466073"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=466072"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=466072"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=466072"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}