Lando Norris has one weakness that ‘everybody’ in the Formula 1 paddock has now identified

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McLaren driver Lando Norris might never get a better chance to win a Formula 1 world championship.

Heading into the summer break, Lando Norris won three of the last four races to close the gap at the top of the drivers’ championship to nine points.

Oscar Piastri was beginning to build up a decent gap over his McLaren teammate, but Norris has done brilliantly to reduce his lead.

The young Australian might feel quite hard done by, having been controversially penalised at Silverstone, before losing out to the alternative strategy in Hungary when Norris got off to a poor start.

Norris has benefited from a ‘very rare’ car change that McLaren have greenlit this season, allowing him to run a different suspension set-up to his teammate.

While it’s not believed to make his car faster than Piastri’s, it shows how desperate McLaren are to win the constructors’ championship that they’re happy with both of their drivers racing different set-ups.

The next 10 Grand Prix could define Norris and Piastri’s Formula 1 legacies, with no guarantees that when F1’s regulations change next season, McLaren will still be the team to beat.

Journalist Andrew Benson has been speaking about the 25-year-old, and shared one strength that ‘everybody’ in the paddock has identified, as well as one weakness that he needs to get over…

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‘Everybody’ in Formula 1 knows that Lando Norris isn’t as consistent as his rivals

Benson was speaking with Sam Bird on the Chequered Flag Podcast, and speaking about Norris’s reputation, he said: “He is blisteringly quick. Everybody says that about him, that he’s about as fast as anybody out there. What he isn’t is as consistent as everybody out there.

“And that’s the battle that he’s got this year. His teammate, Oscar Piastri, is incredibly solid.

“I think probably when everything’s perfect for Norris, he’s probably a little bit faster than Piastri. But what we’re seeing is that Piastri has a very, very high average.”

Bird continued: “I think if there is a weakness of Lando’s, I think there might be… honestly, it’s unfair to say two, but maybe one of them.

“Look, Oscar is very, very headstrong. And I think that Lando can continue to work on that side of things, to get stronger with regard to being more level-headed all the time. Not getting too down when it’s gone badly, not getting too elated when it’s gone well. I think that’s where Oscar’s good.

“But also, we’ve just mentioned how fast he is. Oscar’s happy with a certain speed, and he can match Lando. There are times when Lando is looking to do the lap of the gods and might then have a snap at the last corner or go off track with all four wheels when it was unnecessary.

“He can be three-tenths up the road here in FP2, but then there are times where he’s pushing so hard, he’s had a couple of near-misses already in FP2, that he doesn’t need to have because he’s already very, very fast.”

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Lando Norris compared to Ayrton Senna during the 2025 Formula 1 season

The dominance that McLaren are showing this season hasn’t been seen very often in Formula 1.

They’re not going to match Red Bull’s incredible 2023 campaign, but there’s no reason why they can’t win 21 out of 24 Grand Prix this year.

It means they also won’t match the best season in McLaren’s history when Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost won 15 out of 16 races during the 1988 campaign.

Senna eventually came out on top that season, despite Prost technically scoring more points, but benefited from a quirk in the F1 ruleset that year to win his first drivers’ championship.

Norris has been told he possesses one Senna trait, which is a serious compliment considering the calibre of the Brazilian legend.

The challenge for Norris now is to build up that consistency that people in the paddock don’t believe he possesses; otherwise Piastri might just come out on top in what’s expected to be one of the closest title fights in recent F1 history.