Lando Norris may be top of the F1 standings but he feels like he’s driving “nowhere near” his best and can’t work out why.
After placing third Sunday at the Bahrain Grand Prix — won by his McLaren teammate Oscar Piastri — Norris said he felt far more confident last year, when he lost out on the drivers’ title to Red Bull’s Max Verstappen.
“I’m confident that I have everything I need and I’ve got what it takes,” Norris said. “I have no doubt about that, that I’m good enough, but something is just not clicking with me in the car.”
Norris, who qualified sixth for Sunday’s race, saw Piastri close to within three points of him in the standings.
“As soon as you’re not gelling (with the car), then you’re going to be in issues, and that’s what I have at the moment,” Norris said.
Even though he’s still leading and won the season-opening Grand Prix in Australia last month, Norris said he hasn’t felt comfortable all year with McLaren’s car — widely considered the fastest on the grid.
Last year, “I knew every single corner, everything that was going to happen with the car, how it was going to happen. I felt on top of the car. This year could not have felt more opposite so far,” Norris said.
“Even in Australia, I won the race but never felt comfortable, never felt confident. The car was just mega and that’s helping me get out of a lot of problems at the minute, but I’m just nowhere near the capability that I have, which hurts to say.”
Norris and Piastri combined to help McLaren won the constructor title in 2024, the team’s first since 1998.
Teammate battles which shaped F1
The years when F1 has been dominated by a single team have produced some of the most bitter rivalries, as McLaren witnessed in the late 1980s with a feud between Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost.
More recently, the relationship between Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg turned sour during their championship fight at Mercedes in 2016.
Norris and Piastri are keeping things civil, though there were awkward moments last year when Norris was asked to make way for his teammate in a race.
McLaren has faced tests from other teams, with Verstappen winning in Japan last week for Red Bull and Mercedes’ George Russell competing with Norris and Piastri on Sunday. Still, the pace of the other teams seems to be fluctuating from race to race, and McLaren’s isn’t. The gap of 58 points on the constructor standings to second-place Mercedes after just four races is vast.
“We haven’t had a consistent challenger week-in, week-out,” Piastri, a 24-year-old Australian, said. “As long as we have the best car, it’s going to be tight between Lando and I.”
Norris feels ‘nowhere near’ his best as Formula 1 title contest heats up inside McLaren
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Norris feels ‘nowhere near’ his best as Formula 1 title contest heats up inside McLaren
- After finishing third Sunday at the Bahrain Grand Prix, which was won by his McLaren teammate Oscar Piastri, Norris said he felt far more confident last year when he lost out on the title to Max Verst
- Norris says “something is just not clicking” for him with McLaren’s dominant car and that he even lacked confidence when he won the Australian Grand Prix last month
At Olympics, anti-doping watchdog WADA rejects audit demand and calls on US to pay its overdue fees
- WADA President Witold Banka said: “I think it fulfills the expectations or the wishes from the US side, and the most important thing in principle, the contribution is not conditional”
- “That is the thing which is extremely important for us”
MILAN: The World Anti-Doping Agency called on the United States to pay its overdue membership fees Thursday and rejected Washington’s bipartisan demand to submit to an independent audit.
The US has long sought more transparency from WADA, which has been criticized for its handling of politically sensitive doping cases. A government funding bill signed into law this week restricts payment of the $3.7 million in dues until there’s an independent audit.
WADA President Witold Banka, speaking at a news conference at the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics, named a list of audits that his watchdog organization is already subject to and said that’s good enough.
“I don’t know any other international organization with such strong auditing mechanisms, so I think there are no obstacles for our friends from US to fulfill their duties and pay the contributions,” he said.
He added: “I think it fulfills the expectations or the wishes from the US side, and the most important thing in principle, the contribution is not conditional. That is the thing which is extremely important for us.”
Sara Carter, the director of the US Office of National Drug Control Policy, sent a statement to The Associated Press reiterating US President Donald Trump’s strong belief in “supporting US athletes and ensuring fair competition in sports,” along with the drug office’s insistence on the external audit.
“The United States will not be bullied or manipulated into paying dues to WADA until such is achieved,” Carter said.
The US has already withheld dues under Biden in 2024, then again under Trump in 2025 — a rare point of virtually unanimous bipartisan agreement between the US major political parties. The funding spat accelerated after questions emerged about transparency regarding WADA’s clearing of 23 Chinese swimmers after they tested positive for performance enhancers before the Olympics in 2021.
“They should be really careful to go up against the United States Congress,” Rahul Gupta, Carter’s predecessor as drug czar, told AP. “It’s never a good idea to go up against a bipartisan Congress where both sides of the aisle definitely want this to happen.”
The US law restricts the release of the $3.7 million until there’s an audit “by external anti-doping experts and experienced independent auditors” showing that WADA’s Executive Committee and Foundation “are operating consistent with their duties.”
WADA statutes say representatives of countries that don’t pay are not eligible to sit on the agency’s top decision-making panels. Gupta was removed from WADA’s executive committee when the US first refused to pay.
“I hope very soon they’re going to pay the contribution and come back to the executive committee as a member,” Banka said.
Banka said WADA’s budget has grown from $36 million when he started in 2020 to approximately $57 million.
“I wish we could have this money, (these) contributions,” he said of the US fees, “but WADA is financially very stable, so this is not the biggest problem.”
The growing impasse comes at a critical juncture as the United States is set to host major international events, including the 2028 Los Angeles Summer Olympics.
“All of us around the Olympic Movement are trying to work together to come to a resolution of the dispute between WADA and USADA, and we’ve made good progress on that,” said Gene Sykes, the US Olympic and Paralympic Committee president and IOC member.
Sykes had a breakfast meeting with WADA leaders this week but declined to give details.
“We understand the disagreements and the issues,” Sykes said.
