Resilient Norris proved everyone wrong with first championship

Lando Norris didn't secure his first world championship by dominating the field or with a flashy performance. Instead, he finished third in Sunday's race to clinch, winning the title in the way he knows best - through resiliency.

And Norris made sure to prove the critics, and perhaps even himself, wrong along the way, too.

No driver has arguably faced more negative labels than Norris. Though narratives can sometimes stubbornly persist, Norris - once mocked for his inability to handle pressure - reclaimed control of a story that culminated in a drivers' championship.

For most of the season, it appeared the title would go to Norris' McLaren teammate. Ultimately, he prevailed because he handled adversity better than Oscar Piastri, who had been lauded earlier this year for his composure and ice-cold demeanor.

However, Norris was the one who finished with fewer wounds in a 24-race war of attrition, as the British driver avoided what the other contenders couldn't. While Piastri's season unraveled after Baku and Max Verstappen succumbed to frustration in Barcelona, Norris maintained his poise and dodged similar downfalls.

Yet, throughout the season, Norris faced situations that could've reinforced the same old narratives about his inability to deliver.

Despite a brilliantly controlled victory in the season opener in Melbourne, Norris struggled to adapt to the MCL39 in the early portions of the campaign. Costly mistakes in Shanghai, Jeddah, and Montreal left him 22 points back in the drivers' championship following the Canadian Grand Prix. Just as the past labels threatened to define him, Norris refused to stay down.

A mechanical retirement in the Netherlands – no fault of his own – left Norris 34 points adrift of Piastri. The result seemed to be the dagger in his title dreams. Just five races later, though, he was back at the front of the drivers' championship standings. And even when Norris appeared to have the title essentially wrapped up after Las Vegas, a disqualification caused by McLaren put him back in Verstappen's grasp.

Norris ultimately survived being hunted by Verstappen, with the clock running out on the four-time champion's comeback.

It might feel wrong that Verstappen, the driver with the most wins and poles, wasn't crowned world champion. The Red Bull driver deserves full credit for his unprecedented late-season charge, but what he did shouldn't take away from the significance of Norris' triumph. After all, Verstappen played a major part in Norris' growth.

Like any compelling protagonist, Norris' championship arc began with disappointment. Midway through 2024, he was thrust into the role of title contender, largely because the sport yearned to see Verstappen and Red Bull finally toppled. Inserted into a title fight that few, Norris included, anticipated, he faced instant expectations to deliver at the level of a polished Verstappen.

He fell flat on his face.

Norris' defeat in 2024, when he was thoroughly outclassed by the veteran Verstappen, led to a pivotal shift in his mindset and preparation. Known for being overly harsh on himself, Norris explained how rewiring his approach to difficult days turned him into a better driver.

"I'm not always more positive, but I'm more positive and less negative about when I have bad days and bad sessions, and I believe in myself a bit more that I can turn it around," Norris said at the Las Vegas Grand Prix. "There've been a lot of races this year when I'm like, I get post-qualifying even, and I'm a bit lost. Especially at the beginning of the year, just off the pace, don't have an answer, don't have a clear, 'OK, tomorrow I need to do this, and I'll be fine.'

"But then I turn it around, and I turn it around either into qualifying from practice, or I turn it around on Sunday. I've done that a good amount of times, where I got to a point where even if I have a bad weekend now, I'm like, 'Well, I've done it before against all the best drivers. I've been off, and I turned it around come the time it matters.' That's a very reassuring feeling that I need."

The evidence of that new mindset was apparent. Although Norris still produced peaks - like the stunning pole laps in Monaco and Austria or the dominant win in Mexico - it was the unexpected wins that set his season apart. In Hungary, Norris turned a poor start into victory by switching strategies. In Brazil, he finished first in every session, while the rest of the grid was getting tangled with each other.

Modern F1 often promotes the fallacy that there's only one way to win a championship. The dominant eras of Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton have partially fuelled that belief. But it's easy to forget the patience and growth that even the best drivers need. Hamilton fell short at his first shot as a rookie and claimed his first title in a dramatic last-lap overtake. Verstappen honed his craft for years, learning the value of consistency before taking the fight to Mercedes - and even then, his maiden championship came under a cloud of controversy.

Norris may not have dominated like Verstappen and Hamilton typically did, but without the points lost to circumstances beyond his control in the Netherlands and Las Vegas, the drivers' championship might have been decided well before Abu Dhabi. Aside from those setbacks, Norris delivered a remarkable campaign, becoming the second driver ever to reach 18-plus podiums in a season. Not too shabby.

For the first time in a long time, a driver shattered all the narratives applied to him, proving that it's never too late to make your own story. But for as much pain as those past failures caused, Norris isn't where he is now without them. That version of himself in 2024 doesn't win this title fight. And the Norris of 2025 doesn't do it without all the shortcomings molding him into a finished product worthy of being called a world champion.