Norris gives 'harsh' verdict on his season so far as he reflects on ‘pretty average’ start

Lando Norris has deemed the earlier part of his season as “not good enough”, with the Briton believing that, prior to the last couple of months, his performance was “pretty average”.

Norris’ campaign initially looked to have started strongly when 2025 kicked off at the Australian Grand Prix in March, having won what turned out to be a chaotic wet-dry encounter.

However, while McLaren team mate Oscar Piastri claimed four victories across the next six rounds, Norris had to wait until Round 8 in Monaco to stand on the top step again.

A difficult moment for the team followed two races later in Canada when a late-race collision between Norris and Piastri – for which Norris took the blame – put the former out of the running while the latter managed to make it home in fourth.

But since Round 11 in Austria, the 25-year-old has bolstered his points tally by scoring three wins, with the most recent of these in Hungary seeing him cut Piastri’s championship lead down to just eight points.

When asked ahead of the race in Budapest to assess his season and give an insight into what his area of focus will be during the next few weeks, Norris explained: “Just what I’ve been doing really over the last month, two months.

“Prior to that, [it was] not good enough, so in a harsh way, I would say I was pretty average before then. Since then, I think things have been a lot stronger.

“I still want more, still need to be a lot better and I’m not as good as where I would like to be, but a lot of improvements have been made.

“I think I’m in a much better place, I’m happier with the car – things like that. I’ve been working hard but I can do a lot more than I have been doing, so, for that reason, just more of the progress that I have been making.”

Earlier in the season, Norris spoke of how he had been spending time off social media, a move that he felt had allowed him to “do things that are productive”.

With this in mind, the nine-time race winner was quizzed on how different his 2025 summer break might look in comparison to previous years.

“It’s not going to be that different,” he reflected. “I’m still on social media every now and then, I’m still going to go and have a good time with my friends in different places, and we’re going to have a little golf trip and do different things.

“So really, it’s not any different to what I’ve done the last few years, which is a good thing. It shouldn’t be any different. There’s no reason it should be any different.

“I still have the priorities of making sure I come back more prepared than ever and in a better way than I could possibly be, but for the same sake, I should treat it no different to how I have done before, which is that Formula 1 is the priority, and I make sure I’m in the best shape I can be for that.”