Lando Norris has said he’s ready to “bring the fight to everyone” as he chases a maiden Formula 1 title in 2025, but who is best placed to stop him?
Norris had a breakout year in 2024 with McLaren, taking his maiden Grand Prix at long last with victory in Miami.
That formed the basis of an outside title challenge as McLaren’s MCL38 elevated to become the all-around class weapon of the F1 field and Red Bull’s early-season dominance with Max Verstappen waned into development strife.
Norris ultimately came up short in the Drivers’ title race as Verstappen’s nous, talent and experience got the Dutchman over the line for a fourth successive title.
Still, after achieving four GP wins and helping secure McLaren’s first Constructors’ title since 1998, Norris’ 2024 campaign was his best yet.
Speaking on BBC’s podcast F1: Back at Base, Norris has learned from the difficulty of losing to Verstappen last year to sustain a proper title challenge in 2025.
“When that realisation kind of sets in of ‘it’s gone’, it’s a tough one,” Norris said of his title loss last year.
“This is what I’ve done since I was a kid, this is all I want to do. So, as soon as that kind of candle is gone and it’s over, it hurts.
“It’s been a year where, actually, I’ve been pretty proud of my performance,” the continued.
“Proud of performing under the pressure that we’ve been under, delivering when I have.
“I’ve made my mistakes and, at the same time, I’ve learned a lot from those mistakes. So for us to go into next year, going ‘we have what it takes, we have a car’… I believe I’m a good enough driver and I’ve got everything it takes.
“I’m excited to go into 2025 knowing I’ve learned a lot, I’ve improved a lot and I’m ready to bring the fight to everyone.”
So, who will Norris be fighting in 2025?
McLaren’s intra-team battle
McLaren is well poised to kick on from a strong 2024 and is widely expected to have the strongest package, so, naturally, one of Norris’ strongest challenges will come from within his own team: Oscar Piastri.
Piastri made a strong improvement in his sophomore campaign, taking his first GP win in Hungary before adding another with a resolute defence over Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc in Azerbaijan.
A tough Lap 1 move on pole sitter Norris during the Italian GP at Monza shows that Piastri isn’t afraid of mixing it up with his more experienced team-mate but 2024 showed he has a key weakness in need of being addressed.
If Piastri truly wants to challenge Norris for the title, he needs to improve over one lap after being out-qualified by his McLaren team-mate in 21 of 24 GPs last year.
The reigning champion
Executing seven wins from the first 10 races when the RB20 was a strong package and hanging onto his title lead through a 10-race winless run when Red Bull floundered showed Verstappen’s prowess as one of F1’s greats.
An inspired 17th to first wet weather win at Interlagos gave the Dutchman championship point in Vegas, which he duly converted.
More often than not, Verstappen won out with Norris in wheel-to-wheel encounters in 2024, leaning on his ruthless streak to thwart the McLaren driver.
Red Bull has acknowledged it needs to provide Verstappen with the necessary tools to succeed and clinch a fifth straight title and if the team’s struggles continue at the start of the coming campaign, the Dutchman may be out of the title picture.
Rest assured, however, if Verstappen gets a sniff at victory, he will remain Norris’ closest challenger in 2025.
Ferrari’s blockbuster duo
From a team perspective, McLaren’s toughest challenge could well come from Ferrari after the Scuderia fell just 14 points shy of Constructors’ title glory last year.
Helping Ferrari’s prospects and laying down a significant challenge to Norris’ title hopes is arguably the strongest driver line-up not just in 2025, but of the decade.
Leclerc alongside Lewis Hamilton is the perfect blend of joint-record title-winner and champion-elect.
Hamilton’s 2024 with Mercedes was pot-marked with struggles, particularly in qualifying and this is an area in which he will need to improve if he is to match Leclerc and pose as a viable candidate for championship glory.
However, Hamilton’s victories at Silverstone and Spa-Francorchamps showed there’s still plenty of spark left in the 40-year-old F1 supremo and if the stars align for him at Ferrari, Norris will face a test just as stern as the one Verstappen posed in 2024.
Leclerc, meanwhile, is coming off of the strongest year of his career to date, taking three fine race victories alongside three pole positions and the Monegasque is confident he can end Ferrari’s 17 season title drought.
“I feel like I’m ready for the championship,” Leclerc told RacingNews365.
“We [Ferrari] just need a car that, throughout the season, is capable of doing that.”
An outside contender
Question marks linger around all of the title contenders in 2025 with no one truly able to gauge the pecking order until F1 cars hit the track in anger.
Still, there are more questions over Mercedes’ title prospects than the likes of Ferrari and McLaren, given the Silver Arrows’ persistent development struggles.
Mercedes’ troubles with the W15 last year masked George Russell’s strongest campaign to date as the Briton comprehensively beat Hamilton in the qualifying head-to-head 19 to five.
Russell’s faultless victory in Las Vegas when the Mercedes was the class of the field shows that he is ready to deliver when given the equipment to do so.
If Mercedes can provide him with the right car, Russell no doubt can be in the mix for the title, but nothing is ever certain in F1.
After seven different race winners in 2024, guessing the title winner in 2025 is perhaps foolhardy.
While Norris’ confidence is justified, it’s clear to see there are several candidates for championship glory this coming campaign.
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