Lando Norris won the 2025 drivers' championship after a season-long battle against Max Verstappen and team-mate, Oscar Piastri. The Brit beat Verstappen by just two points, despite the Dutchman closing to Norris by 47-points in just three races.

For Norris, there is now a stark contrast between the 2024 and 2025 seasons, where he has come up against Verstappen. In 2024, Norris struggled to overturn a 70-point deficit whilst Verstappen was struggling with his RB20 in the second half of the season.

Speaking about Norris' improvements, Andrea Stella said: "I think Lando elevated his sense of status. Like, 'I can't compete with Max.' There were some learning points, like Austria {2024}, it was a tough one. But this season, there was another important turning point in my view, which is the way Lando responded to the difficulties we had at the start of the season."

Early in 2025, Norris trailed team-mate Piastri in the championship, as the Australian looked to check-out and win the championship. However, despite a somewhat difficult start to the season for Norris, the Brit turned his performances around and reclaimed his lead in the championship at the Mexican Grand Prix.

Stella continued: "There was the start of a process which was structured, holistic, it was involving personal development, professional driving and race craft. I think it makes me particularly glad that Lando could capitalise on this, because this has been something that I've not necessarily seen many times before."

Stella added: "This has made Lando capable, and this is again valid for both of our drivers, of absorbing a couple of tough moments, like when we needed to tell the drivers that we got disqualified, that was tough, because they had done the job, but we had not, and they lost a lot of points."

Norris became the first McLaren driver to win the F1 drivers' championship since Lewis Hamilton in 2008 and also the first British world champion since Hamilton in 2020.

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