Lando Norris Is ‘Driving at the Level of a World Champion,’ Says McLaren Boss Andrea Stella After His Zandvoort Fightback

• Andrea Stella says Lando Norris is “driving at the level of a World Champion” after the Dutch Grand Prix winner had to fight back past Kimi Antonelli to win from pole
• Norris has won back-to-back Grands Prix, following his Hungary victory with a second successive win at Zandvoort, and calls it “probably one of my better wins”
• Stella refuses to discuss a title defence, insisting McLaren’s only focus is Monza, where the car’s low-downforce demands will test their recent gains

Andrea Stella has praised Lando Norris after the Dutch Grand Prix, saying his driver is operating “at the level of a World Champion” after Norris had to fight back from behind Kimi Antonelli to claim victory from pole position.

Norris fell behind Antonelli at the second standing start in Zandvoort but found extra pace on the hard compound tyre, allowing him to catch and then pass the Mercedes driver with a move made more difficult by the presence of Lewis Hamilton, who Ferrari had yet to pit, running out of position ahead of them.

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“He’s Driving at the Level of a World Champion”

Norris pulled clear once he was through, matching Antonelli’s lap times even as the Mercedes driver made a further pit stop for fresh rubber. His ability to switch on the tyres on a day when several rivals struggled left a strong impression on his team principal.

“I think Lando is driving and operating at very high level, in absolute sense, in relation to being Formula 1 World Champion,” Stella said after the race. “I think he’s driving at the level of a World Champion and like I always say for Lando, what I like the most of his journey in Formula 1 is that he keeps improving. I think especially after the start of the 2025 season, something clicked.”

“It’s almost like I see Lando getting stronger and stronger race by race, because I think his weekend was nowhere near a weekend in which we could fight for the victory, after having seen the performance in the Sprint,” Stella continued. “But we invested in trying to understand where was the opportunity from a tyre exploitation point of view and car improvement. I think when you have conditions in which the car slides in the race, there’s not much grip, then I think he is the master in this kind of conditions.”

Norris on the Move That Won Him the Race

Norris himself broke down the pass on Antonelli that decided the race, made on lap 54 of 72 around the outside of Turn 1 before he closed up to and passed Hamilton on the same lap to reclaim the lead.

“Yesterday I said we needed to put on a bit of a show for everyone for the final race here, so I made it tough for myself today but a good race, well-fought,” Norris said. “Probably one of my better wins, we had to fight for it well but the pace was strong. We managed things incredibly well today so I’m over the moon, very happy.”

He explained the thinking behind the overtake itself. “The move was good. I knew I wasn’t going to get many chances. Every lap I spent behind him, my odds were getting lower and lower. I saw Lewis defended and I knew that was my moment. I did a couple of clicks on my brake balance. I knew I was going to commit to the braking and that move won me the race. Just well-played on my part. I knew I had to make it and I probably had one chance to really make it happen and I made the most of it.”

A Second Win in a Row, Built on Hungary’s Upgrades

Norris’ victory in Zandvoort was his second Grand Prix win in a row, coming off the back of his triumph in Hungary and continuing to make good use of the upgrades McLaren introduced there. Considering where the team started the year, off the podium and unable to get both cars to the start of the race in China, the turnaround has been significant.

Norris is fourth in the standings on 159 points, 24 points behind Hamilton and Russell, who are level on 183 points apiece in the battle for second, and 83 points behind championship leader Antonelli. With Max Verstappen having shown last season just how large a gap can be closed in the second half of a campaign, attention has turned to whether Norris can now mount a defence of his own title.

Norris played down that prospect when asked directly. “It sounds boring but one race at a time,” he said. “Not a lot of people say it now but it’s the truth of it, there’s no point thinking that far ahead. I need to concentrate now on having a nice little break. Obviously two great weekends but we just need to reset, to learn as much as we can. I think there are still plenty of things we can do better and we need to do better if we want to fight for a championship.”

No Title Talk From Stella Either

Stella echoed his driver’s caution, insisting McLaren’s approach remains unchanged regardless of the gap. “The real approach we have is just one race at a time,” he explained. “There’s not much more you can influence than just maximising what’s next.”

“The next race will be Monza and if we think of the demands of Zandvoort and Hungary, and then we think about the demands of Monza, we are in a completely different regime,” he said. “So, I think if we can confirm our improvements in Monza then, yes, we can look with some optimism of the remainder of the season.”

Why Monza Worries Stella

Monza’s low-downforce, high-speed layout is a very different test to the tracks that have suited McLaren’s recent upgrades, and Stella was candid about the areas that concern him heading into the Italian Grand Prix on September 4-6.

“We know that drag is not necessarily a point of strength of our car, for instance,” he said. “There’s a lot of braking in Monza, which is not necessarily a point of strength to our car. So, there’s a whole lot of things that we need to confirm as we head on to the next race.”

“But so far, I think we can confirm that when we are at high downforce circuits, with this sort of layout, then we can fight for victory,” Stella added.

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Written by

Jack Renn

Jack Renn is an editor at F1 Chronicle and a veteran motorsport journalist with 25 years of experience covering Formula 1 and international motorsport. A member of the Association Internationale de la Presse Sportive (AIPS), the global body representing accredited sports journalists, Jack has spent his career reporting from paddocks and press rooms across the F1 calendar. His work spans race analysis, technical insight, and in-depth features, giving readers authoritative coverage grounded in decades of firsthand experience at the highest level of the sport.

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