Norris started this year with a win in Australia, but after that the first part of the season was a struggle. His teammate Oscar Piastri had made significant progress thanks to assiduous work with the team over the winter, and Norris was not feeling the car in the way he needed to be fast.
Advances over the winter had made the new car faster, but introduced what drivers called a “numbness” in the front axle, which prevented Norris from exploiting the car.
A front suspension tune was developed to improve Norris feel and was introduced in Canada in June. It wasn’t an overnight fix and it was relatively minor in nature, but certainly after that the trend line of Norris’ career was positive.
Despite being 34 points behind Piastri at the end of August, Norris took the title just nine races later.
Norris attributes his resilience to “a good group of people around me, who support me, guide me, help me, whether it’s been a good weekend or a bad weekend, people who always have my best interests at heart and are there to put me in the right mindset when I’m down.”
“Two reasons I’ve done well are: one, I’ve done a better job, so I perform better more often; and two, I’m not always more positive, but I’m more positive and less negative when I have bad days and bad sessions. And I believe in myself a little more that I can turn things around.
“A lot of work off the court with different people. A lot of work on the court. But it all starts with my team around me.”
Stella has a phrase for this. He calls it “recognizing the gap toward perfection,” a description he has used for Alonso’s approach to his career. It means that no matter how good a driver you are, you look at your weaknesses and work to mitigate them. It is a process in constant evolution.
F1 drivers generally don’t talk about these things, and if they do, it’s usually in an allusive way that attempts to hide any weaknesses.
Carlin says, “He doesn’t see that as a weakness because he’s an authentic, genuine person. It’s not even in his nature to hide that process.
“To a certain extent, you have to be in the environment that challenges you. And although Lando has had a few seasons in F1, he hasn’t had several seasons in a position to be a championship contender.”
“So you have continued to develop throughout your F1 career, but to some extent the pace of your development is limited by the extent of your potential. And if your potential is limited by various factors, such as your car and the pace relative to other teams, then that has an impact on to what extent you can develop and at what pace.”
“But when he was given a car capable of challenging for the championship, his own development accelerated to match it.
“So it’s with those greater opportunities and those greater challenges that their rate of development has really accelerated, to reflect that.”
Which should mean there’s more to come.
