Not for the first time in 2025 Lando Norris heads into a race weekend keen to make amends for disappointment at the previous event, and with an urgent need to claw back some points in his fight with Oscar Piastri.
The Belgian GP was even more frustrating in that he did the difficult bit and beat his McLaren team mate to pole, only to lose out on the first lap to a combination of driving and technical issues.
Despite his best efforts on an alternative strategy with hard tyres he had to settle for second, losing another seven points to his rival.
Once again there followed a few days of soul-searching and discussions with the team and what he could have done differently or better.
“There’s hindsight of certain things,” he said when I asked if any lessons had been learned. “Nothing which means I would have won the race. There’s also things he probably could have done better too.
“So even if I had a mega last corner or mega Turn 1, still a pretty good chance he would have passed me anyway. So sometimes you’ve just got to accept that. As much as I would like to win them all, you can’t. A tough one to take, because I did a bad job.”
Norris stressed it wasn’t just down to him not getting it right as the first guy in line on the wet track.
“I didn’t have the best run, but at the same time then we had some, not problems, some let’s say incorrect settings with the battery, which meant he had a slight advantage of battery comparing to me, which certainly didn’t help.
“But I also didn’t do the best two corners. Whether that would have made a difference or not, hard to say. With the issue he probably would have passed me, no matter what. So yeah, a tougher one to take from that perspective.
“From the strategy and pit stops, tough to say. I don’t think a double stack would have been any better. I just had a slow pit stop. It was more the slow pit stop, and it was one of my lock ups in Turn 1, which cost me over a second and a bit. You put those two things together, it’s like four seconds of race time.
“So there’s things I could have done better, and then we as team and team could have done better, and that’s what we will try and work on.”
Spa underlined just how tight the battle between the two team mates is. There’s no margin for either to put a foot wrong over the course of a race weekend.
“I think it’s probably down to the least mistakes, I would say, more than anything,” he noted. “Not necessarily who is outright the quickest, or who can simply race better or make the best overtakes.
“I have some of my strengths, he has some of his, and it’s more down to the least mistakes. Especially because of the position we’re in as a team, we have a car that is you can say one of the best cars made in F1, and we’re first or we’re second more often than more not.
“And therefore it’s just kind of more between us, more than who qualifies first and sixth. We qualify first and second more often, and you can kind of just hold on in Turn 1, and then go from there.
“There’s not been many races where positions have swapped through a race, so therefore it’s more who can then make the least mistakes from that point next onwards.”
Asked if he had to drive at 100 percent to win the World Championship, or had learned that 99.8 might be enough, he made an interesting comment.
“I try and perform at 101 percent,” he said. “Sometimes that’s amazing. Sometimes that’s, I think, as good as you can get. And that’s what I feel is the optimum of what I and what I think a driver can achieve at times, and I do believe that.
“But also times I should drive at 95 or even 90 percent and that’s still enough to be on pole or P2 sometimes. I do regret trying to be so good at beginning part of the season, and now already I sometimes just settle for a 95 percent lap. And that’s that’s still good enough.”
Norris made huge strides last season as he experienced a winning car for the first time and found himself battling with the likes of Max Verstappen, as well as Piastri.
That process has continued this year, although his struggles to come to terms with the MCL39 have had an impact.
“There’s just always different situations, different moments along the way,” he said. “I think as a driver, I still feel better than I was. Doesn’t mean I always do a better job, because the car is quite different this year.
“I’ve had my tricky moments with the car and understanding how to drive it, just because, yes, it’s a McLaren, it’s got papaya on it, but it handles pretty differently to how it’s done in previous years. So I’ve had to just adapt to that, and it’s not suited me as well.
“But it’s just tough, and I’ve got to do what I’ve had to do, and I’ve needed to do a better job to get back to being as quick as I need to be, which I feel like I’ve done, and I’ve improved on.
“So I think [I’ve shown] my ability to improve on worst moments as a proof, or ability to improve on certain struggles that you might achieve during a weekend, or over a session or practice, whatever it is.
“Other than that, I think there’s just always going to be for everyone little things along the way that’s a new experience, or you didn’t expect, that you wish you could be better on. But I think that’s just life.”
Adam Cooper F1 