Lando Norris won’t get any special treatment from McLaren as he bids to win his maiden F1 world title this season. The 25-year-old will head to the opening Grand Prix of 2025 in Australia next month as one of the favourites for the crown, having won four times in 2024 and finished second in the drivers’ standings to Max Verstappen.
After a poor start to the campaign, Norris briefly threatened to take the battle to wire with his Red Bull rival but was forced to settle for the consolation of the Constructors’ crown alongside Oscar Piastri.
But it wasn’t until the tail-end of the campaign that the British team opted to direct team orders in favour of the 25-year-old, having previously let him and Piastri compete on an equal footing.
The tactic was stark contrast to the priority given to Verstappen at Red Bull, and the issue nearly came to a head at the Hungarian Grand Prix. Norris was ordered to slow down while leading and let his Australian partner through for a maiden race win, initially ignoring the order before eventually yielding in the final laps.
According to team principal Andrea Stella, the policy won’t change this season, with the Italian insisting team philosophy will override favouritism. Speaking at McLaren’s launch of this season’s MCL39 car at Silverstone, Stella insisted that all team members were on board with the plan.
“The main aspect is that both drivers start the season with equal opportunities,” he said. “And our fundamentals are still based on the racing principles that we already used last year.”
He added he was “quite proud” of how both drivers interacted in 2024, and regularly gave one another feedback and advice. Furthermore, Stella insisted that any driver who didn’t buy into McLaren’s principles would not be welcome within the British team.
“It’s important to say that the racing principles are representative not only of what the team believes in terms of how we go racing, but also what the drivers believe,” he continued. “Because if a driver is not fully into these principles, then that’s not the right driver for McLaren.
“I really look forward to having this kind of challenge. It means that we are doing well as a team, it means that the two drivers are doing well as drivers, and it means that the car is actually competitive, and we did a good job from a technical and racing point of view.”
Piastri was fourth in the standings last time out, 82 points behind Norris. But at just 23, he’s long been touted as a future title contender in F1 and is expected to push his team-mate harder in this campaign.
McLaren’s last drivers’ title came back in 2008 when Lewis Hamilton prevailed in dramatic circumstances. That success ended a nine-year wait following Mika Hakkinen’s back-to-back triumphs in 1998 and 1999.
