Norris enters uncharted territory as title favorite

Lando Norris is in uncharted territory. By winning the season-opening Australian Grand Prix, he is now leading the drivers’ championship for the first time in his Formula 1 career.

It brings to an end a remarkable run of 1,029 days since the last time a driver other than Max Verstappen was top of the standings, with the Dutchman having taken over from Charles Leclerc at the Spanish Grand Prix in May 2022, and never been headed until today.

But Norris is also dealing with the pressure that comes with the tag of drivers’ championship favorite, and leading from the front when he is expected to. On paper, converting pole position into a victory in Melbourne looks like a simple outcome in the record books, but it’s the manner of the win that Norris was so proud of as he reflecting on a chaotic Sunday.

“To start the season off like this – to start it off with a win is good enough, but to do it in such a stressful race, one where it’s so easy to make a mistake, so easy to to ruin everything so quickly, it can all have gone wrong within a second,” Norris said.

“Any second of the race, you (can) lock up, you hit the white line wrong, you have a big snap, it was just very, very difficult at times to just not go into a wall or a tire barrier somewhere. So that’s a big enough challenge, but then when you have got the weather changing and the track conditions changing, knowing when to make the correct decision to change onto a slick tire and stay out on the inter tire, and then even more when I’ve got Max behind me and Oscar behind me, it’s stressful.

“But I guess it’s what makes it rewarding, it makes it such a nice win. Difficult, a lot of tough moments, but I guess that’s what makes it sweeter.

“We worked a lot over the winter to prepare for a race like this, because it’s where we threw away a lot of opportunities last season. It was Canada, (and) Silverstone, where we were not the best at preparing and knowing how decisive we’ve got to be. And today we were very, very decisive, calling to box five meters before I boxed, but it was the right call in the end, and that won us the race. So stressful, but rewarding.”

Norris ticked off a number of milestones during the race weekend at Albert Park that can seem small but are far from insignificant. One of those was taking pole position with his final lap, overcoming an error that led to his first attempt getting deleted, and the next was getting a clean launch off the line in the wet to lead the opening lap once again.

That was a repeat of what he had managed to achieve in Abu Dhabi last time out, and while there wasn’t the pressure of a constructors’ title on the line on Sunday, there were wet conditions and the looming specter of Verstappen in his mirrors.

Verstappen had cleared Piastri at the start but didn’t have the pace to keep up with the McLarens as the track dried. Come the final stages, though, the defending champion had made all of the right calls to put himself right on Norris’ gearbox for a late safety car restart – the third that Norris handled well – and in with a shot of an unexpected victory.

And that’s when the pressure was really on. Red Bull knew there was a chance to try and expose what it has suggested is a potential weakness in Norris’ armor, specifically his ability to handle the big moments.

“ very nearly nicked it at the end there,” Red Bull team principal Christian Horner said. “I think Lando looked like he tightened up a little bit at the end of the race. He made a mistake at Turn 6, went half off the track and that gave Max a little bit of a run at a track that’s very difficult to overtake, and then the next lap he got another run.”

Norris resisted late pressure from Max Verstappen. Lubomir Asenov/Getty Images

In the end, those were the only two looks Verstappen got, as Norris held him off by 0.8s to take the win. But while the McLaren driver acknowledged his error, he pointed to teamwork from McLaren in helping him stay focused, and he believes it was the track layout that prevented him pulling clear again.

“I knew I was going to struggle a bit just because I put the inter on two laps prior to him and with half the track still being dry, I pushed and even the high speed was dry, so I kind of destroyed my tires a little bit.

“The front tires, you could see the rubber was already rolling over on the edges, so I knew my pace advantage was not going to be as much as it was at the beginning of the race.

“At the very beginning of the race, when it was wettest, Max was just as quick as us. As it dried, we got a lot quicker and then the Red Bull started to struggle. So I knew Max would be quick in those last few laps and I knew he would risk a bit more because there’s only about five, six, seven laps to go.

“I did make a mistake in Turn 6, where I just put a wheel in the gravel. I just lost all my momentum and drive, and Max got to within DRS and DRS really managed to help him stay there.

“It’s just tough because it’s not so much just the pressure of him being there, but it was the pressure of if I put a wheel too close to a white line on an entry, I’m off. If I clip the curve wrong in six on the inside, I’m off. If I dip a wheel in the gravel, I get a bad run and he’s past.

“There’s so many little things that can go wrong, so just trying to concentrate on not locking, not rear locking, not hitting the curbs wrong, but still trying to go quicker than you’ve ever gone because you know a guy’s trying to do the same behind you.

“It was stressful. I’m not going to lie about that. I was checking my mirrors a good amount and things like that, but even Will came on the radio to me and told me just to chill out a little bit.

“He knows and Jarv as well, my racing performance engineer, knows very quickly from my driving when I’m pushing a bit too much, when I’m pushing entries too much and those kind of things. They’re very quick to jump on and say, ‘Do this better,’ or ‘Watch out for that,’ because they know what I do and what I struggle with, especially in a situation like that.

“But that situation was new for me. I’ve not ever led a race with five laps to go with Max behind me trying to put me under pressure and in these conditions. Maybe Max has had that a few times. He’s raced against Lewis a lot and he can just deal with that probably better than I can.

“For me, it was a new situation, so it was kind of see how it goes when I get there. So happy that I just got through it and stayed calm, and it’s somewhere I improved on from last year.”

It wasn’t perfect – as Piastri’s lost podium proves – but it was a race that McLaren and Norris could well have failed to take victory from last season. And Verstappen’s threat shows it was an improvement that the team needed to make if it is to give itself the best chance of success on both fronts this year.