Key Lando Norris change under the spotlight after breakthrough moment spotted

Overturning a 34-point deficit to lead by 24, James Hinchcliffe believes the key to Lando Norris’s run of form is a turnaround in his qualifying with the McLaren driver having cut out his Q3 mistakes.

Retiring from the first race after the summer break in the Netherlands due to an engine failure, Norris’s hopes of winning the F1 2025 title were dealt a huge blow as he dropped 34 points behind his teammate Oscar Piastri.

From ‘clueless’ to championship leader, key Lando Norris change

Describing his performances in qualifying as “clueless”, Norris openly admitted to costly errors, especially in Q3 that led to the Briton removing the delta time from his dashboard at the Monaco Grand Prix.

“I’ve not had it since Monaco. I’ve never used the delta since in qualifying,” he explained to PlanetF1.com and other media outlets. “Sometimes I just stare at it too much and that’s never the best thing.”

Norris has secured nine front-row grid slots in the 14 races since and laid down his most dominant performance at the recent Brazilian Grand Prix where he was on pole for the sprint and the grand prix, winning both races.

That put the McLaren driver 24 points clear of Piastri in the race for the F1 2025 title.

Lando Norris v Oscar Piastri: McLaren head-to-head stats

👉 F1 2025: Head-to-head qualifying statistics between team-mates

👉 F1 2025: Head-to-head race statistics between team-mates

Former IndyCar star James Hinchcliffe believes the 26-year-old’s turnaround in form has come from his shrugging off his qualifying mistakes, giving him momentum in the races, and in the championship.

He told the F1 Nation Podcast: “The little mistakes that we would see from him in the first half of the year, I always saw them when the internal pressure was high. He has always been very good with the external pressure.

“You put him on track in a wheel-to-wheel battle, he’s very rarely making mistakes. He’s very rarely putting a wheel wrong that opens a wheel up for a driver to get around him. He has been very, very strong in that sense.

“His mistakes were leads Q1, leads Q2, messes something up in Q3. That was kind of a more common thing.

“And that’s why in Brazil, that first run in Q3 a lot of people were saying: ‘Oh no, here we go again.’

“And what saw so great about that performance was he put on his next set, went back out, and blitzed the field.

“That shows you that he is driving with an incredible amount of confidence and he’s not letting those mistakes creep in.

“You can’t fault a thing he’s done in the last 10 on-track sessions.”

Having led the early part of the season only to be overhauled by Piastri in the McLaren title fight, Hinchcliffe reckons Norris is taking the right attitude into the run in as he concedes anything could yet happen.

“He tries to shy away from saying things like he doesn’t believe in momentum,” the Canadian continued, “and to a certain extent I understand because momentum can switch so quickly through no fault of your own.

“So that’s where from a driver’s performance, pure performance of what a driver has control over, where he’s at is a very good spot.

“His confidence is in the exact right place but it’s checked. He’s not getting cocky or arrogant about it.”

Norris, he adds, will also benefit from McLaren no longer having a vastly superior car as it means the swing between himself and Piastri can be greater than the seven points found in a one-two result.

“It is definitely a big advantage,” he said, “even more so now had McLaren been able to keep up the advantage they had at the beginning of the season when it was almost a foregone conclusion of a McLaren one-two.

“It was just which guy was in front. Now it’s not a foregone a conclusion.

“It makes the job of the hunter that much more difficult but it can also benefit you.

“But it can also benefit because if you are the guy that’s leading and there are two cars between you, you can take more than those seven points.

“It’s a bit of a double-edged sword.”

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