Who slept best last night: Lando Norris

For the first time since 20 April, Norris is back in the championship lead

Add this to the list of reasons to take Adrian Newey off Aston Martin’s 2026 project and give him a new assignment – invent a time machine. Just to go back a couple of months and show everyone who was mourning the lost intrigue of the 2025 title fight a replay of the Mexican Grand Prix and an official FIA document with the drivers’ standings. Just for the sake of seeing the look on their faces.

How the hell did that happen?

It was supposed to be over for Lando Norris after Zandvoort, wasn’t it? Sure, we said back then that the championship was still long and “anything can happen” – but who, realistically, believed that in just five rounds Norris would not only erase a 34-point deficit but actually lead the standings?

And Max Verstappen… no one was even talking about him back then. The Dutchman was third – a gigantic 104 points behind Oscar Piastri at the top. Can you imagine that George Russell, in fourth, was just 21 points behind the Red Bull man? Sounds insane, doesn’t it?

With McLaren so dominant in the first half of the season, Norris’ task looked colossal. The destiny of the title was still in his hands, but to get back on top he needed nothing less than five wins in a row – assuming Piastri finished second in all of them. That would have been just enough to swing the 35 points.

Lando Norris, McLaren, Oscar Piastri, McLaren

Photo by: Andrew Ferraro / LAT Images via Getty Images

Those in the past would’ve wondered the obvious: did he really go on and win five in a row? Norris – the guy who clumsily wrecked his car by sticking it into Piastri’s in Canada? The guy who seemed at a loss to explain how he could be so inconsistent despite his experience advantage over his team-mate?

No, dear people of the past, he didn’t suddenly turn dominant in every race like he was in Mexico City. On the contrary – he kept being criticised, this time for not making the most of his rival’s misfortunes. But perhaps unfairly so.

Because ever since he got his backside off the grass at Zandvoort, Norris has simply been the better of the two McLaren drivers.

McLaren team boss Andrea Stella is right – Norris sometimes produces great races. Take Zandvoort a year ago, for example. But those were always isolated flashes mixed with some mediocre weekends. That lack of sustained brilliance probably stopped him from giving Verstappen a proper fight last year. And it was that inconsistency – together with the Zandvoort DNF – that allowed Piastri’s lead to stretch to those 34 points by early autumn.

The thought almost comes instinctively: what if Norris needed to become the underdog to really pull himself together? Could it be that this DNF simply released enough pressure for him to stop doubting and just focus on what matters?

It may sound simplistic, but whatever changed, from that point it was Norris – not Piastri – who was the quicker McLaren driver almost everywhere, Singapore qualifying being the only real outlier. He was also more aggressive when it counted – like at the starts in Monza and that very same Singapore – and more consistent and composed too. Calm, even, a quality usually attributed to his team-mate.

Lando Norris, McLaren

Photo by: Sam Bagnall / Sutton Images via Getty Images

It was in Baku when Jonathan McEvoy from The Daily Mail quizzed Stella after the race – like a father asking a teacher to help his son improve in a few subjects: “Lando in England is viewed… in England everyone's like, we'd like Lando... A day ago, a moment like that – the other guy's in the wall – we'd like Lando to get over the line and deliver. Lando didn't do that. Have you got any sort of doubts or worries or ways you need to deal with Lando to bring him round to, you know, do the, I suppose, the job that he's there to do?”

That came after a weekend when Norris again closed in on Piastri – but by only six points, finishing seventh on a day his team-mate jumped the start and crashed on lap one.

For many, that wasn’t good enough. He should’ve been more aggressive in qualifying, overtaken more cars in the race, closed the gap faster.

Yet Norris perhaps knew whether the risk was worth taking.

Earlier this year, he admitted he regretted chasing sprint pole in China too hard – and losing seven points by ruining his final SQ3 lap, then failing to make progress in the sprint itself. He also conceded it wasn’t too clever to lunge at Piastri in Montreal; he could’ve stayed behind and waited for a better chance.

It almost seems he’s just learned his lessons from this year’s campaign. Apart from Mexico, none of his recent races were particularly spectacular – yet he kept inching closer: three points in Monza, six in Baku, another three in Singapore, eight in Austin.

Ironically, McLaren’s early halt to car development also worked in his favour, allowing others to close the gap just enough to get in the mix. In Mexico, when Norris was in a league of his own, that paid off handsomely – because it was Verstappen’s Red Bull, Charles Leclerc’s Ferrari and the brilliant Oliver Bearman who all finished ahead of the struggling Piastri.

Lando Norris, McLaren

Photo by: Sam Bagnall / Sutton Images via Getty Images

He’ll now be declared the favourite – because that’s how the modern world works. Just as after Zandvoort it was “let’s wrap it up and start 2026 already,” the new chorus will be “it’s Norris’ title to lose.”

But those who think Piastri is done will probably be proven wrong. There are still a few tracks left where he’s been lightning-quick in the past – remember, he won the sprint in Qatar as a rookie. He’s still learning, and he surely won’t give up that easily. And there’s also that Dutchman with the big red “1” on his car – he’s not going to miss a chance to keep it for another year.

Still, Norris does look like the favourite now. Verstappen sits 36 points back with four rounds to go – an even steeper climb than Norris faced after Zandvoort. One more weekend where Max finishes “just” third, and that chance may be gone. And Piastri doesn’t look much like the driver from the first half of the season. Oscar’s last podium, after all, still dates back to Monza.

To win, Norris only needs to keep doing what he’s been doing lately. And he knows it.

That Dutch GP DNF inevitably came up in the post-race press conference, when Tom Clarkson offered Norris, if not a time machine, then at least a quick look back: “You're back in the lead of the world championship by one point. Zandvoort must feel like a long time ago now.”

“Yep.” Norris smiled. “But it's still very clear in my head.

"So, yeah. I mean, you put that behind you, right? You forget about that as much as you can, and you just focus on every race coming up. Yeah, you forget about every previous weekend. Of course, you try and learn from every situation, but every weekend's new and you have a fresh start to try new things and try and do better than before. And I feel like that's what I've done very well this weekend.

Lando Norris, McLaren

Photo by: Steven Tee / LAT Images via Getty Images

"You know, the last few have been decent. This has easily been my best performance. But still a long way to go, so I just have to keep doing what I'm doing, keep trying to be consistent against some very quick guys around me. And, yeah, I think that'll be good.

"But it doesn't mean because I'm ahead or behind or whatever that I have to drive or do anything differently. So, just keep doing what I'm doing."