Lando Norris
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Lando Norris beat Max Verstappen to win the 2025 Formula 1 world championship by just two points. Given the superiority of the McLaren, many feel Verstappen had no right to be so close.
In the hands of Norris and Oscar Piastri, the MCL39 won 14 Grands Prix, while the other top three teams won 10 combined. McLaren also scored 34 podiums, as many as Red Bull, Mercedes and Ferrari combined.
Norris and Piastri have downplayed their advantage over the course of the year. The Briton says that McLaren simply have two drivers performing at the highest level, while Red Bull dealt with an underperforming Yuki Tsunoda and Kimi Antonelli faced a difficult learning process at Mercedes.
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Verstappen, who was 104 points off the lead at that stage, has been widely labelled the best driver of the season. But that doesn’t mean that Norris isn’t a deserving champion.
Robert Doornbos says Lando Norris’ 2025 title win should have been ‘much easier’
Norris is Britain’s first new champion since Jenson Button in 2009. Both drivers saw their lead over a Red Bull driver ‘shrink’ at the end of the season, with Button beating Sebastian Vettel by 11 points (albeit under the old points system).
Red Bull arguably overtook Brawn GP midway through that campaign, whereas former F1 driver Robert Doornbos says McLaren have had a ‘dominant’ package all year.
Doornbos believes Norris, who entered the year as the favourite, should have won far more easily. Verstappen has said he would have won the championship with multiple races to spare in the McLaren.
Where does Norris rank?
Norris has also been warned that he may not get ‘another chance’ to win the title, with the regulation overhaul this winter potentially reshaping the pecking order.
“The difference is in the car,” Doornbos, who briefly drove for Red Bull, said. “Norris’ McLaren has been the dominant car all year. The similarity with Button is the shrinking lead and the tension that brings.
“Look, winning is winning. Yet, there will always be a bad taste to Norris’ title. He could and should have made it much easier for himself.
“And will he get another chance like that? That’s highly questionable with next year’s new technical regulations.”
Formula 1 needed Lando Norris to win the title
Jacques Villeneuve says Norris became a ‘winner’ in the final third of the season. A crushing win in Mexico and a perfect Sprint weekend in Brazil put him in control of the title race.
All three title race protagonists were in the ascendancy at one point in the season, but Norris peaked at the perfect time.
Disagreeing with Doornbos, Marc Surer says it’s ‘good for Formula 1’ that Norris won the title. Surer called him a ‘role model champion’.
Norris has also broken the Lewis Hamilton/Max Verstappen duopoly, which stretched back to the start of the 2017 season.
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