Lando Norris
McLaren
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Lando Norris says he’s used ‘to not winning’ in Formula 1, unlike fellow countryman Lewis Hamilton.
When Norris joined McLaren in 2019, they were the fourth fastest team in F1, leading the midfield rather than chasing the top three. He scored his first podium at the start of his second year, but had to wait until 2024 for his first win.
Back in 2007, Hamilton started his career with nine straight podium finishes, taking his first victories back-to-back in Canada and the US. He finished just a point shy of winning the world championship that year, but lifted the trophy 12 months later.
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Lando Norris says his F1 career has been the ‘complete opposite’ of Lewis Hamilton
Norris won the title in 2025, his seventh year in the sport. He has already accepted that his hopes of defending the crown are all but over after slipping 92 points off the pace early on.
McLaren say that their battle with Red Bull and Max Verstappen, which went to the wire, meant they couldn’t commit as many resources to their 2026 project. They are also struggling to optimise their Mercedes engine and lack the aerodynamic and mechanical strengths of the past two years.
But Norris, who arrives at his home race this weekend fifth in the championship, hasn’t found the adjustment all that difficult. After all, he’s accustomed to driving a car that can’t challenge for victories.
By contrast, Hamilton won at least one race in each of his first 15 seasons before Mercedes’ decline in the ground-effect era.
“I’ve spent, what, six years trying to win a race,” Norris reflected on F1’s Beyond the Grid podcast. “You have the two complete opposites. You have Lewis, who had a car that could fight for world championships straight away, got used to winning.
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“For him, going to not winning was quite an extreme thing. For me, I was trying to win, because we had such a terrible car, for six years. I’m more used to not winning because of these situations than I am to it.”
Before his maiden win in Miami, Norris held the record for the most podiums without a victory. He still ranks eighth all-time for most race starts before standing on the top step.
On the other hand, only 15 drivers in the sport’s history have won a race earlier in their careers than Hamilton. Since 1951 (the second year of the championship’s existence), only he and Jacques Villeneuve have won a title inside their first two seasons.
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