{"id":243240,"date":"2025-10-27T10:26:10","date_gmt":"2025-10-27T10:26:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/243240\/"},"modified":"2025-10-27T10:26:10","modified_gmt":"2025-10-27T10:26:10","slug":"lando-norris-mclaren-driver-talks-down-claims-of-f1-title-momentum-after-mexico-city-gp-win-despite-overtaking-oscar-piastri-for-championship-lead-f1-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/243240\/","title":{"rendered":"Lando Norris: McLaren driver talks down claims of F1 title momentum after Mexico City GP win despite overtaking Oscar Piastri for championship lead | F1 News"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Lando Norris has insisted the dominant win in the Mexico City Grand Prix that has taken him back to the summit of F1&#8217;s world championship does not yet carry any wider significance until he follows it up with &#8220;two, three or four in a row&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Oscar Piastri&#8217;s unbroken 189-day stay at the top of the Drivers&#8217; Championship was ended by Norris on Sunday as the Briton claimed victory with the largest winning margin of the season while his McLaren team-mate finished fifth.<\/p>\n<p>The result hands Norris a slender one-point championship advantage over Piastri, with Red Bull&#8217;s Max Verstappen still in the hunt too at 36 points behind, with four race weekends of the season to go.<\/p>\n<p>The Briton admits his form in Mexico made the event &#8220;one of my best weekends of the whole season&#8221; but, in a year in which he has struggled to consistently extract the best of the team&#8217;s MCL39 car, he was not getting carried away by the eye-catching result.<\/p>\n<p>Asked if he had doubted himself earlier the year, when regular mistakes in his long-time stronghold of qualifying proved particularly costly in his fight against Piastri, Norris replied: &#8220;I certainly did [doubt myself], because I never want to blame my car.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Certainly when the car was winning and Oscar was winning, the last thing I could do is use the excuse that my car is not good enough.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sdc-site-video__accessibility-message\" data-role=\"accessibility-message\">Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player<\/p>\n<p>                <img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/skysports-mexico-city_7063393.jpg\" alt=\"MEXICO\"  aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"sdc-site-video__poster-img excluded-image\" data-testid=\"sitewide-video-poster\"\/><\/p>\n<p>              Highlights of the Mexico City Grand Prix<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I wasn&#8217;t getting up to grips and wasn&#8217;t finding a way to make it work, and I&#8217;m finding a better way to make it work now.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;So it&#8217;s as simple as that. Of course, it gives you good confidence.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;One race, really, I don&#8217;t care about.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Four race weekends now remain in this year&#8217;s title battle &#8211; with the Sao Paulo Grand Prix, which stages the year&#8217;s penultimate Sprint, next up on November 9.<\/p>\n<p>Norris added: &#8220;I&#8217;m not a believer in momentum in some ways. One great weekend really doesn&#8217;t mean anything.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Two, three or four in a row means something.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"sdc-site-video__accessibility-message\" data-role=\"accessibility-message\">Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player<\/p>\n<p>                <img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/skysports-formula-one-norris_7063361.jpg\" alt=\"NORRIS\"  aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"sdc-site-video__poster-img excluded-image\" data-testid=\"sitewide-video-poster\"\/><\/p>\n<p>              The crowd erupted with boos heard as McLaren driver Lando Norris spoke on his Mexico City Grand Prix victory<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;It&#8217;s not about reinventing myself&#8217; &#8211; what now for Piastri after loss of title lead?<\/p>\n<p>While Norris&#8217; form has steadily improved over recent months, Piastri has now gone four races without a podium finish in a sequence of results that has seen his once-comfortable 34-point title lead over Norris completely evaporate.<\/p>\n<p>While the Australian&#8217;s race from seventh on Sunday&#8217;s grid in Mexico City was always going to be one of damage limitation, Piastri revealed there had actually been a further challenge at play for him across the 71 laps &#8211; making changes to his driving style to get the most out of the car.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;For me the biggest thing is trying to learn the things I wanted to learn today,&#8221; said Piastri, who finished on driver of the day Oliver Bearman&#8217;s tail.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Yesterday it became obvious after the session that there was a few things I needed to change pretty majorly in how I was driving.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Today was about trying to limit the damage, but also trying to learn some things about that. If I&#8217;ve made some progress with that I&#8217;ll be happy.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Obviously when your team-mate wins the race finishing fifth is nothing that extravagant.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sdc-site-video__accessibility-message\" data-role=\"accessibility-message\">Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player<\/p>\n<p>                <img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/skysports-norris-formula-1_7063344.jpg\" alt=\"norris&#13;&#10;\"  aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"sdc-site-video__poster-img excluded-image\" data-testid=\"sitewide-video-poster\"\/><\/p>\n<p>              The championship battle continues to heat up as McLaren&#8217;s Lando Norris takes the lead after cruising to a comfortable win in a chaotic Mexico City Grand Prix!<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ve just had to drive very differently the last couple of weekends &#8211; or I&#8217;ve not driven differently when I should have.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I think that&#8217;s been a little bit strange to get my head around because I&#8217;ve been driving exactly the same as I have all year.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s just the last couple of weekends the car or the tyres or something required quite a different way of driving. I&#8217;ve just not really gone to that.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Piastri added: &#8220;I&#8217;ve tried to change it up a bit today and once we analyse if it&#8217;s effective or not that will hopefully help see some progress.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The car&#8217;s obviously not changed for a while so it&#8217;s nothing to do with the car. Given how the pace has differentiated, clearly Lando has found it easier to dial into that and I haven&#8217;t.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s important to remember the other 19 races and the way I&#8217;ve been driving has been working pretty well.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s about adding some tools to the toolbox, rather than reinventing myself.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;We need to be faster&#8217; &#8211; Verstappen and Red Bull&#8217;s reality check?<\/p>\n<p>Verstappen also gained two places in the race, having adopted a different tyre strategy to those around him, after his own qualifying struggles to finish on the podium for the sixth race running.<\/p>\n<p>From 104 points back on Piastri at the end of August, the Dutchman has raced back into late contention for a fifth consecutive title but the scale of Norris&#8217; win on Sunday underlined that McLaren remained formidable.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s fine to think different [on strategy], but the most important thing is we need to be faster,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sdc-site-video__accessibility-message\" data-role=\"accessibility-message\">Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player<\/p>\n<p>                <img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/skysports-formula-1-max_7063439.jpg\" alt=\"verstappen&#13;&#10;\"  aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"sdc-site-video__poster-img excluded-image\" data-testid=\"sitewide-video-poster\"\/><\/p>\n<p>              Max Verstappen left disappointed after his thrilling chase to Leclerc disrupted by a Virtual Safety Car in a chaotic Mexico City Grand Prix!<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We had some really good races, but even in the races we won if you look at the tyre management then McLaren are still very strong.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Then in a weekend when they have more pace in general you have no chance.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Formula 1&#8217;s thrilling title race continues in Brazil with a Sprint weekend at the Sao Paulo Grand Prix on November 7-9, live on Sky Sports F1. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nowtv.com\/membership\/watch-sky-sports?DCMP=ilc_skysports_nc_articlelink\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Stream Sky Sports with NOW &#8211; no contract, cancel anytime<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lando Norris has insisted the dominant win in the Mexico City Grand Prix that has taken him back&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":243241,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[441],"tags":[49,48,578,576,577,82],"class_list":["post-243240","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243240","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=243240"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243240\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/243241"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=243240"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=243240"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=243240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}