Norris declares McLaren the F1 title favourite with Piastri pushing him to be better

It is rare for Lando Norris to speak with an air of confidence over his 2025 Formula 1 title chances but, after holding off reigning champion Max Verstappen to take victory at the Australian Grand Prix, he concluded McLaren is indeed leading the pack.

After McLaren locked out the front row in qualifying, Norris converted pole into the fifth grand prix win of his career to start his championship quest with the full 25 points in Melbourne.

McLaren ended last season as the strongest team on the grid, claiming a first constructors’ crown since 1998, but even after impressive pace in pre-season testing, Norris was keen to play down expectations.

However, victory at Albert Park as he held off Verstappen’s late charge to take the chequered flag has clearly allowed Norris to relax into the role of title favourite.

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“We’re the favourites, we are the team to beat,” he said. “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 ruin everything so quickly – it can all have gone wrong within a second, any second of the race.

“We know we have a lot of work to do on this year’s car still. I think if you do relax in that position, you failed because in Formula 1 if you start thinking things are good and groovy that’s when you start to get caught.

“We know we have a lot of work to do. I do think we’re favourites because the team has done an amazing job. If we started off in Bahrain I don’t think we would have won the race.”

A wet/dry race to open the new year means there are still some unanswered questions over relative race pace but, in the small window of dry running available, Norris and team-mate Oscar Piastri were a class above the rest of the pack.

Both were caught out by rainfall late on having switched to the hard tyres and Piastri followed Norris onto the grass at Turn 11 but, while the leader was able to recover, the hometown favourite slid off and fell down the order before recovering to finish ninth.

It was an unfortunate ending for Piastri, who has been told he is free to race Norris at this early stage of a new season with no McLaren ‘Papaya Rules’ yet at play.

Both Verstappen and George Russell were on the podium alongside the winner, and they have rookie team-mates this year at Red Bull and Mercedes, respectively.

Norris believes the quality of the McLaren driver line-up will help both to be better over the course of the campaign.

“We have two drivers up there pushing each other – that helps,” he added. “Do I think me and Oscar working together yesterday in terms of pushing one another allowed us to get one-and-a-half/one tenth more than the two drivers here because their team-mates aren’t as equipped and as experienced? Yes. Add that into the equation as well – don’t just say it’s the car.

“The team has done an amazing job. I thank them for everything they’re doing. We know we can make it a lot better still.”

Lando Norris, McLaren, Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing, George Russell, Mercedes

Photo by: Simon Galloway / Motorsport Images

McLaren CEO Zak Brown wants the team to keep improving the current car as the squad seeks to prevent the field closing up to the leader in the same manner they did with Red Bull last year.

Asked how long he thinks the team will be able to keep up its advantage, Brown told Sky Sports F1: “I hope 23 more races. We definitely have a very quick race car, but we see how quickly things change in this sport.

“So we need to make sure we keep developing, but that’s what everyone back at McLaren has done an awesome job of doing in the last few years.

“I think the communication is very strong, our decision-making. We don’t kind of second-guess ourselves and so I think great execution today.

“The team had a plan. It was very tricky conditions, we communicated well. Communications with the drivers were great. We executed accordingly.”