With his start-to-finish victory in Mexico, Lando Norris regained the lead in the 2025 Formula 1 World Championship – Andrea Stella explains the Briton’s dominance
According to McLaren team boss Andrea Stella, Lando Norris’ dominance at the 2025 Mexican Grand Prix was largely due to the fact that the track suited his driving style. The long-time McLaren driver never relinquished the lead during his start-to-finish victory on Sunday at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez, taking the lead in the 2025 Formula 1 World Championship with four races remaining in the season. This was also made possible because the previous leader, Oscar Piastri, could not get beyond fifth place in the sister McLaren. The Australian struggled with the special conditions at the altitude of Mexico City and the associated low grip level. These conditions cause the cars to slide heavily in the corners. According to Stella, this suited Norris perfectly, who now leads Piastri by one point after losing the championship lead in April at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.
Norris’ favorite conditions
“These special conditions with low grip suit him perfectly,” says Stella of Norris, who ended McLaren’s five-race winless streak. “For him, it’s a natural way to find a good lap time, which is almost the opposite of Oscar’s style.”
“That will only boost Lando’s confidence, and that will be important for the last four races,” Stella analyzes. “But I think both Lando and Oscar are going into the last four races with a lot of momentum.”
“I think the team is also going into the last four races with a better understanding of how to consistently get performance out of the car. Because in the races before Mexico, we left some performance in the garage at times.”
Norris’ and McLaren’s work pays off
This is in stark contrast to the rest of the year, in which Norris repeatedly complained about his difficulties in pushing the MCL39 to its limits. This was particularly evident in qualifying: Max Verstappen in the Red Bull has the most pole positions this year with seven, compared to five each for the two McLaren drivers. However, a breakthrough came in a debriefing after the Singapore Grand Prix, just two races before Mexico. McLaren and Norris searched intensively for ways to better tailor the MCL39’s setup to his preferences.
This ultimately led to the 25-year-old’s tenth Grand Prix victory of his career. Mexico was also the most statistically dominant victory by a driver since Max Verstappen in Hungary two years ago: Norris finished 30 seconds ahead of runner-up Charles Leclerc – just four seconds less than the Dutchman’s lead in Budapest at the time.
Norris’ dominance no surprise
However, Stella was not surprised by Norris’ performance, as he has shown similar pace in the past and has now won seven times from pole position.
“If we look at Lando’s past years, we’ve seen weekends with this level of dominance at other venues as well,” Stella said. “Last year we saw it at Zandvoort, we saw it in Singapore. So it’s not the first time Lando has performed at this level.”
“He was very convincing here [in Mexico],” praised the team boss. “I think he was basically the fastest in every single session. He was able to fully exploit the performance and strength of the car.”
