Lando Norris gave an exasperated response as he again insisted his McLaren team does not have a significant advantage over their Formula 1 rivals. That’s despite the Woking-based squad already having a 77-point lead at the top of the constructors’ standings after just five rounds.
McLaren have won four of the five Grands Prix held so far with Max Verstappen the only other driver to taste victory, at Suzuka earlier this month. Oscar Piastri added his third win already in 2025 at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix while Norris still only has one success to his name so far.
That came are the opening round of the season with a strong drive to victory which looked to be the start of a strong march towards his first title. But even though it is still early days on that front, his challenge has stumbled somewhat in recent weeks.
McLaren have been the class of the field but the likes of Verstappen and George Russell in the Mercedes have been close enough to take advantage of any stumbles. And Norris has made a couple of those, particularly over the course of the last two rounds in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia.
He finished fourth in Jeddah on Sunday after a recovery drive from 10th on the grid, as a result of his crash in qualifying. Piastri was joined on the podium by Verstappen in second place and Charles Leclerc, who held off Norris to secure a first top-three finish of 2025 for Ferrari.
But when the Brit was asked afterwards if he was surprised by the pace of the Red Bull and Ferrari cars, he wore an exasperated expression as he replied: “Nope – I don’t know why people are so surprised. They’re just as quick in quali in most sessions, they’re just as quick as us in the race.
“Just because we’re quick in practice, people just keep coming up with all this crap. I mean, they can keep saying what they want. We don’t believe we’re much ahead, as showed. I think probably Max was the quickest out there today, if he didn’t have that five-second penalty. So we have work to do.
Formula 1 fans can watch every practice, qualifying and race live with Sky’s new Essential TV and Sky Sports bundle in a new deal that saves £192.
As well as Sky Sports access, this includes more than 100 TV channels and free subscriptions to Netflix and Discovery+.
“People keep saying that we’re the best, we’re the quickest, blah, blah, blah. But it’s just because we show a bit more pace in practice and then we don’t have anything left when he gets to quali. But that’s our way of doing things. That’s how we feel we optimise things – if we didn’t do it that way, we’d be even further back. I’m happy with the work we’re doing. People just need to recalibrate.”
Piastri’s victory saw the Aussie take the lead in the drivers’ championship for the first time in his F1 career. Norris is only 10 points behind but his team-mate has the momentum right now and he knows that, to wrestle it back, his qualifying form in particular needs to improve.
Norris added: “It’s the best we could have done today. Of course, it’s a shame to miss out on a podium. We were close, you know, it’s always hard to judge those things.
“I think I’m pleased on the whole. I just make life tough for myself, especially when it’s a race like that. So it would have been much easier, a lot more chill to drive out the front. In some ways it’s a bit easier, so I’ve got to help myself out a little bit and have a better Saturday.”
At Reach and across our entities we and our partners use information collected through cookies and other identifiers from your device to improve experience on our site, analyse how it is used and to show personalised advertising. You can opt out of the sale or sharing of your data, at any time clicking the “Do Not Sell or Share my Data” button at the bottom of the webpage. Please note that your preferences are browser specific. Use of our website and any of our services represents your acceptance of the use of cookies and consent to the practices described in our Privacy Notice and Cookie Notice.