Lando Norris was nursing a damaged car while defending against Max Verstappen, claims F1 insider

F1 pundit Ted Kravitz said that Lando Norris had a damaged car while defending Max Verstappen during the 2025 Australian Grand Prix on Sunday, March 16. The McLaren driver made the perfect start to his title aspirations as he finished P1 after starting from pole position and leading from the front for almost the entirety of the race.

Norris had to battle tricky conditions and minimize mistakes when a late race downpour came and created chaos in the race. Despite going off the track in the changeable conditions, the 24-year-old managed to make the right decisions at the right time with his team and defended his position from Verstappen in the final laps of the race to claim his fifth F1 victory.

During his F1 Notebook segment on Sky Sports, Ted Kravitz mentioned he was told by McLaren that Lando Norris had floor damage to his MCL39 in the final laps, owing to an off-track excursion in the rain.

"McLaren told us that actually Norris had damaged his car on the squirely bits that saw Oscar Piastri come to grief, and actually that's what made Norris vulnerable to Max at the end of the race," Kravitz said (2:20).

Despite leading the race by over 16 seconds over Verstappen at one stage, Lando Norris eventually finished just over eight-tenths ahead of the Dutchman.

---

McLaren team boss comments on Lando Norris's damaged car in Melbourne

McLaren team principal Andrea Stella said that Lando Norris lost a lot of "aerodynamic performance" owing to his floor damage heading into Turn 12 during the final phase of the race in Melbourne.

As quoted by GPBlog, the Italian reflected on the damage to the MCL39 and said:

"One issue we had in the final laps of the race with Lando is that he had the floor pretty badly damaged," Stella said. "He lost aerodynamic performance and this meant that he couldn't utilize the full pace of the car. So I think the situation got more tense than would have normally been the case because of this damage to Lando's car. "

Mentioning that the race wouldn't have been as tight of an affair if not for the damage Norris' car sustained, Stella added:

"I think how strong the car was we could see actually with Oscar that in the space of a few laps, he recovered three, four positions. I think in normal circumstances it shouldn't have been that difficult for Lando."

With his Victory in Melbourne, Lando Norris opened a seven-point gap over the reigning four-time F1 world champion Max Verstappen in the driver standing and led the championship for the first time in his career.

The Dutch driver has been dominant in the current generation of cars and previously led the driver's championship from Spain in 2022 until Australia on the weekend.