Lando Norris has revealed the unique changes that helped transform his F1 season.
The McLaren driver claimed a commanding victory at the Mexico City Grand Prix, taking back the world championship lead from teammate Oscar Piastri by one point with four races remaining.
After taking pole position at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodríguez, Norris revealed that he had turned off the delta display on his steering wheel at the beginning of the season.
Drivers rely on data provided by the steering wheel display for real-time information on how the lap is progressing, but, unusually, Norris has decided to discontinue using the information so he can focus on driving as fast as possible.
“That hasn’t happened since Monaco,” Norris explained. “I haven’t used Delta since qualifying. Who knows if it helped me or made it worse?
“When you don’t have that, I think it’s just pushing no matter what. No matter what the start of the lap is, no matter what corner it is. I think it’s probably because you can’t really use the overall lap time as a reference and you always just try to get the most out of every corner.”
“Otherwise you can end up staring at it too much sometimes and that’s never the best thing. Usually when things are going well, like this time, it’s a fun surprise to see the lap times show up, so that’s nice.”
Suspension adjustment is also important.
Norris returns to the top of the world championship
Since retiring at the Dutch Grand Prix at Zandvoort, Norris has been on a roll, enjoying a 35-point swing at Piastri in his next five races.
This, combined with Piastri’s sudden downturn, has led to suspicions that McLaren will back Norris in the title race. Such far-fetched theories have been slammed by teams and F1 experts alike.
There’s a less sinister explanation for what’s going on, and it has to do with Norris’ confidence in McLaren’s MCL39.
Earlier this season, Norris wasn’t completely comfortable with the car.
McLaren halted development of its 2025 car a few months ago, with the final upgrade to be carried out at September’s Italian Grand Prix. The last major update in the form of a revised floor came at the British Grand Prix in July.
New front suspension was offered to both drivers for the Canadian Grand Prix in June, but only Norris decided to go with it. In recent months, the British athlete has found a sweet spot where he is more comfortable and his performances have improved.
Norris has revealed an important report with his engineers after the Singapore Grand Prix sparked his recent resurgence.
“But the car felt better today,” Norris told Sky Sports F1 after winning by nearly 30 seconds in Mexico City. “It all depends on how the car feels. Last year the car felt really good and we were able to perform better. This year I had a hard time understanding the car.”
“It was incredibly fast, but obviously it’s still difficult to drive. But once you get into that sweet spot, you can make it work, which is something we’re still struggling with in Singapore over the last few weeks.”
“So we had a debrief and we sat there for about 30 minutes and said, ‘Guys, this is exactly the car I don’t want. This is why we’re not going to win any more races, and the reason we’re not going to win in the future is if I keep having a car that doesn’t give me what I need.’
“This weekend we got a little bit more of what we needed so we can perform like we did this weekend, it’s a no-brainer.”