Lando Norris can repeat one James Hunt feat he’d hope is a positive omen for the 2025 F1 title fight

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Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri are fighting to hand McLaren their 13th drivers’ title in the 2025 season and also end their team’s 17-year drought between championships.

McLaren have not won the F1 drivers’ championship since Lewis Hamilton secured the 2008 title by one single point over Ferrari ace Felipe Massa. But the 2025 F1 season is increasingly becoming a two-horse race between Piastri and Norris, with Max Verstappen a distant third.

F1 will come out of the summer break at the Dutch Grand Prix on August 29-31 for round 15 of this year’s 24 with Piastri leading Norris by nine points. Piastri even boasts a 97-point lead over their rival from Red Bull, and Verstappen doubts he will win another Grand Prix in 2025.

Piastri would become the first Australian to win a title for McLaren if he sees out the season ahead of Norris, who can become their third British champion after James Hunt in 1976 and Hamilton in 2008. Hunt won McLaren’s second-ever title after Emerson Fittipaldi’s 1974 title.

Lando Norris can imitate James Hunt by winning back-to-back Dutch Grands Prix

Norris will even head to Zandvoort with the chance to imitate Hunt, who was the last British driver to win successive runnings of the Dutch GP in 1975 and 1976. The 25-year-old would, no doubt, also hope that winning the 2025 Dutch GP can be a positive omen for his title bid.

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Hunt fended off Ferrari rival Clay Regazzoni by just 0.9 seconds to win the 1976 Dutch GP to slash his championship deficit to Niki Lauda down to only two points. Lauda did not contest the 1976 Dutch GP as it was the second of two races he missed after his Nurburgring crash.

Victory for 2024 Dutch GP winner Norris in the 2025 race could also see him slash his deficit to Piastri down to just two points if McLaren secure a one-two finish on August 31. It would be the smallest margin between the papaya pals since Norris won in Monaco in round eight.

Norris broke Verstappen’s Dutch GP dominance to win at Zandvoort in 2024, as the Bristol-born driver who secured pole position recovered from losing the lead off the line to win by 22.896s. Piastri got P9 in the 2023 Dutch GP and P4 in the 2024 race with a 27.337s deficit.

Dutch GP glory can set Lando Norris up to echo James Hunt by winning the drivers’ title

Norris will now hope to become the first British driver to score back-to-back Dutch GP wins since Hunt in 1975 and 1976 when the 2025 F1 season resumes at Zandvoort following the McLaren man’s victory there in 2024. He will also hope it is a positive omen for his title bid.

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Echoing Hunt by winning back-to-back Dutch Grands Prix would also cut his championship deficit to, at worst, two points to Piastri during what Norris hopes will be his first title-winning term, like it was for his compatriot in 1976. Hunt edged Lauda by one point for his only title.

Norris can even regain the lead of the 2025 F1 drivers’ championship for the first time since Piastri earned first place by winning the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix in round five back in April, should his Australian teammate fail to finish within 10 points of the Briton in the Dutch GP.

That said, while winning successive Dutch Grands Prix could be a positive omen for Norris in the 2025 title fight, Piastri will have far longer to reply than Lauda did to Hunt in 1976. Hunt won at Zandvoort in the 12th of the 16 races held in 1976 for his fourth of six wins that year.