Lando Norris opens up on one thing McLaren cannot afford to do after winning the Constructors Championship in 2025

F1 driver Lando Norris talked about his expectations from his team, McLaren, for the upcoming season now that they have become the defending Constructors' Champions. During an interview with Mastercard's Chief Marketing and Communications officer, Raja Rajamannar, he said that his team would have to avoid becoming laid-back for the 2025 season, expecting that it would be easy for them given their success last year.

Talking with the CMCO, at The World Economic Forum in Davos, earlier this week, Norris highlighted what he believes to be a mistake that others make once they make it to the top.

“Now that we won the championship as a team we want to do it again, and I think one thing the team have done very good at is the knowledge of 'they want to do it again', but it's not to get complacent now. That's what can happen very easily to a lot of athletes or for anyone in the world almost, is once things start to go well you can easily relax and it can drift away from you very quickly.”

However, the British driver agreed that the team hasn't slipped into that pitfall and has instead been pushed forward by their win last season.

“So, the team has remained very focused. It was easy for all of them to get back and just go “Ah we're good, we've done it now. Let's just relax,” they've done the opposite. They've gone “We want even more.” They've worked even harder to try and find new things for this year. So I think they've turned these expectations into positive things, into more motivation and more drive to want it again,” he added.

In 2024, McLaren secured the top spot in the Constructors' Championship table after they finished the season with 666 points. Norris and his teammate, Oscar Piastri, scored 374 and 292 points, respectively, and added six wins and 21 podiums to the team's record. This was the team's ninth championship win throughout their time in the sport, and their first in 26 years.

Lando Norris secured second place in the Drivers' Championship, falling 63 points behind the now four-time World Champion, Max Verstappen.

Lando Norris discusses how his single pit stop in Abu Dhabi had to go right to win the title

Race winner Lando Norris, 10th placed Oscar Piastri and the McLaren team celebrate winning the 2024 F1 Constructors Championship in the Pitlane after the F1 Grand Prix of Abu Dhabi - Source: Getty

In the interview with Mastercard's CMCO, Lando Norris was asked about the final race of the season in Abu Dhabi, where it came down to either McLaren or Ferrari being crowned Constructors' Champions for 2024. He discussed how there was a lot of pressure on the race and everything had to go right, including, but not limited to, the pit stops he made in Lap 26.

Norris and the team had to be perfect so as not to lose any time once the car made it out of the pits. Discussing his thought process going into that stop, the 25-year-old said:

“That was the biggest moment because that's the one where if I brake a bit too late and I go long into the pit stop, the mechanics will have to move, we might lose five-tenths of a second, half a second and that could be it. That could have made the difference.”

Revealing how the pit-stop, which took 2.1 seconds, actually went down, Lando Norris was all praises for his crew who completed the task while dealing with the most stress they've faced in his eight years with the team.

"They did an amazing job. They got it in two seconds so it was the best one of the race from the team under probably the most pressure I would say they've had in the last eight years. This was the one they had to get right, and they did, and it shows how much of a team effort it is, which was incredible”, he said.

This year, McLaren returned to the grid as defending champions, while being one of only two teams to have retained their same driver line-up as last season. Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri will drive the team's 2025 car in Bahrain during pre-season testing at the end of February.