Lando Norris believes his performance at the Mexico City Grand Prix was his best all race weekend after taking the championship lead with a commanding victory from pole position.
McLaren had not won since Oscar Piastri’s victory at Zandvoort, but Norris produced an impressive pole lap on Saturday and then led every lap of the race to win by more than 30 seconds over Charles Leclerc. Although it was the largest point differential of his career to date, Norris said he was most proud of how he performed throughout the weekend.
“I think this was the game where I performed my best,” Norris said. “I don’t know if I’m ahead or not, but from FP2 to the end of the race, that’s when I think I performed my best. In a way, I think this was just my best performance of the whole weekend, all the qualifying laps, all the practice, the whole race.”
“The car is just fast. It’s been that way all season, but obviously it’s still hard to drive at times. Just finding that sweet spot, the road gets closer, and I think it makes life a little bit easier. I don’t know (why). It’s hard to say that my car is better than other cars, but it just has a little bit more grip. That’s always the easiest answer.”
Norris, who retired from second place at Zandvoort at the end of the summer break, was 34 points behind Piastri, but he outscored his teammate in each of the next five races and went into the final four races with only one point difference in the lead.
“It’s still very vivid in my mind,” he said. “You put (Zandvoort) behind you, right? You forget about it as much as you can and focus on all the races ahead. You forget everything about the previous weekend. Of course you try to learn from every situation, but every weekend is new and you can try new things and have a fresh start to be better than before. That’s what I feel I did very well this weekend.”
“The last few games have been decent. This is definitely my best performance, but there’s still a long way to go. So I just have to keep doing what I’m doing and keep trying to be consistent against the very fast players around me.”
“I think that’s good, but it doesn’t mean I have to do anything different because I’m in front or behind or anything. I just keep doing what I’m doing.”
Despite taking the championship lead, Norris also warned that Max Verstappen had outpaced both McLaren drivers since the summer break, closing the gap between third place and the lead to within 36 points in Mexico.
“It’s one weekend at a time. I’m happy,” he said. “I just focused on myself, kept my head down, ignored all this and stayed myself and that’s working well for me at the moment, so I’m happy.
“As far as championships go, who knows? Things are still pretty tight between us. Max has still got me the last six, seven weeks. So…I kept my head down, stayed focused, kept doing my thing, and that’s all you can do. Every weekend is new, every weekend is different, and it goes a long way.”