Lando Norris’ stunning Formula 1 Mexico Grand Prix pole may not be a guarantee his McLaren qualifying issues are behind him, but it appears he is coming alive at the best possible time.
In Mexico City, Norris ended a pole-less run that dated back to June’s Belgian Grand Prix, during which time he has seen Piastri take control of the championship, only for the Australian’s recent wobbles and Red Bull’s resurgence to bring Max Verstappen back into the frame too.
In taking his fifth pole of 2025, Norris has matched Piastri and also levelled the score at 10-10 in head-to-head qualifying, a tie which looked unlikely at the start of 2025. Norris lost some of his one-lap prowess over the off-season with a MCL39 that proved rapid but also difficult to drive. The Briton particularly struggled to get a feel from the front axis at the very limit of adhesion, leading to a range of Q3 mistakes that Piastri – and increasingly often Verstappen – punished.
It led to plenty of behind-the-scenes soul searching both on Norris’ and the team’s side to figure out how to mitigate his woes, and Mexico was a textbook example of a driver who was comfortable from day one, with the 25-year-old rapidly getting up to speed in FP2 despite ceding his car to Pato O’Ward in the morning.
“When I look at my first lap in FP2 – my first lap of the weekend – I was on it,” Norris said. “It’s a track which is not easy because of the downforce and the grip and things like that, but I was pleasantly surprised at how quick I was on the pace compared to everyone – to the others who already did FP1.
“It’s hard to quantify how much work the team has done behind the scenes to give me a bit more of what I want, and what I need, in order to perform at the level that I can perform at. But there’s certainly a lot of work that I’ve also done personally, away from the track, with a lot of people to understand what my struggles were and then how I can combat it. Because the last thing I want is to make an excuse.”
Lando Norris, McLaren
Photo by: Sam Bagnall / Sutton Images via Getty Images
According to team boss Andrea Stella, there is also a technical reason why Norris has been so strong in Mexico while Piastri has struggled.
“It was good to prove that it was the fastest car,” Stella said. “But the fastest car is also a car that needs to be driven in a certain way, especially when you have conditions like here and to some extent in Austin, with hot tarmac, sliding tyres, and the way in which you generate lap time is a way that, I would say, comes relatively naturally for Lando and less naturally for Oscar.
“Lando is the driver of going on low grip, at the end of the stint when the tyres are quite worn, that’s where we see Lando – green sector, green sector, green sector. Oscar, instead, is more of a driver of high grip, that’s where he can exploit his incredible talent.”
It’s also easy to forget that Piastri is still only in his third F1 season, and thus has a smaller bank of experience to rely on when technical reasons are holding him back.
In any case, Norris’ low-grip prowess isn’t more relevant anywhere else than the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez at 2200 metres above sea level, which Pirelli chief Mario Isola said was the “lowest grip” circuit of the entire calendar. The Italians also made an aggressive choice to bring the C5 tyre as the softest compound.
At altitude and on a low-grip surface where tyre sliding comes with a steep overheating penalty, McLaren’s ability to manage its tyre temperatures paid dividends for Norris. And it will likely do so in the race, with second-starting Charles Leclerc taken aback by the McLaren’s formidable long-run pace on the mediums in FP2.
Lando Norris, McLaren
Photo by: Steven Tee / LAT Images via Getty Images
But that doesn’t mean Norris’ woes are fully behind him. Only three races ago in Singapore, his Saturday felt like Groundhog Day.
“It was only a few weekends ago in Singapore where I almost felt like it was the beginning of the season again – no feeling for the front, no confidence, no ability to go out and do what I did today. So, it’s a little bit up and down still,” he cautioned.
“There’s certainly areas we have to improve. And if I want to be able to do what I did today more often – which I do – we have to improve the car more and I’ve got to try and make it more to my liking.”
But Norris’ uptick in form is certainly coming at exactly the right time for him as he aims to capitalise on his team-mate’s late season wobble. With Piastri starting seventh and overtaking expected to be difficult on Sunday, it is not out of the question that Norris overtakes the Australian in the title fight if he overcomes a two-pronged Ferrari assault on lap one.
“The car is incredibly quick, but it’s not easy to drive. I think we both complained of that as drivers,” he summed up his Saturday.
“But when you just get in that little bit of a rhythm, it’s flying, and that’s where I was.”
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– The Autosport.com Team
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