Lando Norris is fast enough to be an F1 champion...but he won't be

Lando Norris isn't going to be an F1 world champion. That's not a new take in these parts (it goes back to the 2024 Dutch Grand Prix on these pages, at least), but it's ringing more and more true as the months go by.

Sunday's Belgian Grand Prix was pure, uncut agenda fuel for the takesters among us. Not a fan of the FIA and modern F1? My friend, the baffling restart decision-making is for you.

Don't think Liam Lawson should've been jettisoned by Red Bull after just two races? You'll enjoy a fine glass of 'he finished eighth and Yuki Tsunoda was three places out of the points'. We recommend it on the rocks.

Here though, we're taking a look at the Lando Norris agenda. A club for those who think that his immaculately coiffured head is just too hot to win the big one, and who's currently blowing his one big chance before the regulation changes throw the grid into flux next year.

Sorry Lando. Really.

The case against him has always been fairly simple. He's a very fast driver, but now in his seventh season in F1 he should've begun to develop the mental fortitude to be more than that. Champions have to be more than that.

Fast drivers become race winners. Fast drivers become championship runners up. It takes a consistent and fast driver to take home the big pot at the end of the year.

Norris might actually be McLaren's fastest driver, on a pure lap to lap pace basis, but he's dropped further behind his team-mate this weekend. Why? Because however much pressure team-mate Oscar Piastri is under – and it'll be more than he outwardly shows – he doesn't crumble.

Meanwhile, Norris will go into a key qualifying session and throw a wheel in the dirt, turning a surefire front row start into something a handful of slots further back. He'll take a reasonable points haul and throw it away by running into the back of Piastri for no clear reason. He will, handed the massive boost of a rolling start in Belgium, have a scruffy start and concede his position, before making multiple mistakes when hunting him down.

The off at Pouhon. The lock-up down at the bus stop. Even if the TV broadcasts didn't pick up on them for a lap or so, it wasn't hard to just keep an eye on the timings board and draw your own conclusions. 'Lando's lost a second, I wonder where he's gone off'. 'Ooh, half a second there, another mistake?'

You know who you couldn't draw those conclusions about? Piastri. Because he wasn't making those mistakes, even while his tyres degraded and feeling what should have been immense pressure from Norris closing in on him behind. Because he makes those mistakes less often than Norris does. Because he is a future champion in a champion's headspace, and his team-mate isn't.

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