Calm Norris plans to stay relaxed after taking lead in F1 title race

Lando Norris said he plans to continue his policy of being relaxed and focussed on just himself after taking a one-point lead in the Formula One drivers’ world championship by winning Sunday’s Mexico City Grand Prix.

As McLaren team-mate and chief title rival Oscar Piastri fought to finish fifth, Norris cruised to a commanding 30-second triumph ahead of Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc, who resisted a late charge by Red Bull’s four-time champion Max Verstappen with the aid of a late Virtual Safety Car intervention.

It was Norris’s first win in Mexico and the 10th of his career, lifting him to 357 points in the title race ahead of Piastri on 356 and on top for the first time in six months since the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix in April.

With four events remaining, Norris has seized the momentum and is also 36 points ahead of in-form Verstappen, who has reeled off six consecutive podium finishes to reduce Piastri’s 104-point lead at the end of August.

“It’s one weekend at a time for me,” said Norris, whose competitive mentality and composure has been questioned this season.

“I’m happy and I’m focussed on myself. I’m just keeping my head down and I keep to myself.

“It’s working for me at the minute so I’m happy... But, what a race. I could just keep my eyes forward and focus on what I was doing.”

Staying calm amid a carnival atmosphere at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez, he added: “It was pretty straight-forward, which is just what I wanted. A good start, a good launch and a good first lap... And then, I could go from there.

“I just stay relaxed and it helps. It helped me get a good start and it’s the best thing.

“For me, this is awesome and I love it, my first win in Mexico and what a beautiful one to win here in this stadium.”

Piastri, who emerged from a mostly desultory weekend with a feisty race, admitted that he had to change his driving style to adapt to circumstances after seeing how Norris has adapted in recent races.

“Today, there was a lot of fight. The whole race I was right behind someone and struggling with dirty air, so that was pretty difficult,” Piastri said.

“For me, the biggest thing is trying to learn the things I want to learn. Yesterday, it became obvious after the session that there were a few things I had to change pretty majorly in the way I was driving.

“Today was about first trying to implement that. If I’ve made some progress with that I will be happy, but obviously, when your team-mate wins the race, finishing fifth is not that extravagant.

“I think I’ve had to drive very differently in the last couple of weeks. It has been a bit to get my head around. I’ve been driving the same all year, but the last couple of weeks the car and tyres required a different way of driving.

“I’ve not really gone to that. I tried a few things today. It is nothing to do with the car. Given how the pace had differentiated in the last couple of races — Lando has found it easier to dial into that and I haven’t.

“It’s about adding tools to the toolbox rather than reinventing myself.”

Meanwhile, Verstappen did not expect to finish on the podium after his struggles in qualifying so the Dutchman was not overly disappointed that a late virtual safety car denied him the chance to turn his third place into second.

He started fifth on the grid after complaining of a lack of grip in Saturday’s qualifying but the Dutch driver finished less than a second behind Leclerc, who was struggling with his tyres at the end.

“Sometimes the safety car works for you, and sometimes it works against you,” said Verstappen.

“Would have been fun, I think, to the end. Well, maybe a bit more fun for me than for Charles defending, but it would have been a fun ending for everyone to watch.

Verstappen did an extended first stint on medium tyres before switching to softs while his rivals made earlier pit stops. The strategy paid dividends as he moved past Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton, after an early battle, on lap 47.

He then climbed to third when several drivers, including Mercedes’ George Russell, Piastri and Haas’s Oliver Bearman, made second stops.

“Personally, I didn’t expect to be on the podium,” Verstappen told reporters. “I think even in the first stint, it was not really looking like it. At the time, I thought we were just slow and struggling on tyres.

“Once we bolted on the softs, we were a little bit more competitive, a bit happier,” he added.

Agencies