Norris jokes Mercedes must repeat McLaren's 2025 blunders for him to retain title

Lando Norris acknowledged he faces a steep climb to retain his Formula 1 world championship, but the McLaren driver refused to rule himself out — with a wry joke that his best hope is Mercedes repeating the very mistakes that almost derailed his own title defence last season.

Speaking after qualifying on pole position for the Dutch Grand Prix at Zandvoort, Norris sits fifth in the drivers’ standings with 112 points, exactly half the tally of championship leader Kimi Antonelli on 224. The gap is stark, but Norris pointed to his own 2025 campaign as proof that Formula 1 rarely follows a straight line.

“I honestly don’t care what I’m doing next weekend or the weekend after,” Norris said. “It’s nice to know that it’s a possibility, and of course I’m hoping Mercedes get a double DSQ in Vegas like we did and decide not to box in Qatar for a free pitstop. So as long as they make the same mistakes, it’ll probably be just as easy.”

The reference was pointed. Heading into the final three rounds of 2025, Norris led Piastri by 24 points with Verstappen a further 25 back — a position that looked comfortable enough for champagne to be on standby. McLaren then made a costly mess of it. Norris and Piastri finished second and fourth on the road in Las Vegas before both were disqualified for excessive plank wear on their cars’ underfloors, handing the momentum back to Verstappen. The following weekend in Qatar compounded the damage, with a Pirelli-mandated tyre protocol forcing a strategic call that went badly wrong, and the championship battle went to the final round.

Norris ultimately held on, but the memory clearly lingers. He drew a direct parallel between that near-collapse and the kind of fortune he would need to close a 112-point gap on Antonelli in the second half of this season.

“Every year is different,” he added. “For me, we’re still trying to play catch-up with certain things, but I’m getting everything out of it for now, and that’s all I can be pleased about. I’m optimistic, I still believe that it’s possible, and that’s all I need for now.”

The contrast with 12 months ago is sharp. After 11 rounds of 2025, Norris was lying second to Piastri, who had already won five grands prix, while Verstappen appeared to be fading. This season, it is a Mercedes — in the form of the 18-year-old Antonelli — that has set the pace, and Norris is the one doing the chasing.

With 13 rounds remaining and a pole position already banked in the Netherlands, Norris is not mathematically out of contention. Whether the arithmetic becomes realistic depends on whether the season bends in his favour — or, as he put it, whether Mercedes finds its own banana skins.