Carlos Sainz on Lando Norris: proof you can win a title without turning into a villain
Las Vegas brought the neon, the noise, and, for Lando Norris, the moment he finally became Formula 1’s World Champion. It also brought a nod of respect from an old teammate who knows the McLaren driver best.
Carlos Sainz, now flying Williams blue, watched Norris edge Max Verstappen to the 2025 crown by two points and called it the best kind of vindication — not just of speed, but of character.
“He’s always been quicker than people gave him credit for,” Sainz told Sky Sports F1, reflecting on their 2019–20 McLaren stint. The Spaniard has long believed Norris had the raw pace to win multiple titles. The difference now, he said, is everything around that speed — the racecraft, the composure, the decision-making — has been sharpened without sanding off what makes Norris, well, Norris.
Norris has never played the on-track enforcer. He rarely dips into the darker arts. This season he didn’t have to. In a campaign that asked hard questions of McLaren’s “let them race” policy with Oscar Piastri and of Norris’s mettle under relentless Red Bull pressure, the answer was a first title won the hard way. Verstappen — chasing a fifth championship — stalked him to the finish, and still Norris refused to compromise the way he goes about it.
That’s what Sainz admires most. In a paddock that often lionises the ruthless, Norris showed there’s another path. Open about his off-days, irreverent but serious when it counts, the 25-year-old made authenticity a weapon. “He doesn’t fit the stereotype,” Sainz said. “He’s stayed honest and himself. You can be the ‘good guy’ and still be World Champion.”
It reads like a friendly postcard from a driver who’s lived in the other garage. Sainz saw the speed early: the way Norris could hang a lap together in qualifying while still leaving margin for a second bite; the way he adapted as McLaren rebuilt around him. Back then, Norris was the upstart kid with the cast-iron Saturdays. Now he’s put Sundays together too.
The margins were as thin as Las Vegas’s pit wall. Verstappen surged in the back half of the year and turned the screw. Social media did its social media thing. Every hesitation from Norris was magnified, every strategy call second-guessed, every late-season wobble framed as a wobble. You could feel the collective intake of breath each time the Red Bull loomed large in the mirrors. That’s the pressure Sainz referenced — “Max breathing down your neck” — and the kind that can turn even the most grounded driver brittle. Norris held the line.
McLaren’s season-long stance helped. They didn’t wall off the garage. They let Norris and Piastri go at it, trusting the process and the pace. That trust, plus a car that stayed on the right side of development, gave Norris the platform to outlast a Red Bull resurgence. And when it became a straight scrap with Verstappen, he found enough points in enough tight places to turn a title narrative into a winner’s medal.
Sainz, who made a high-profile switch to Williams for 2025, delivered his plaudits with a smile and a tiny warning label. The only thing he hopes doesn’t change is the person. Fame can be a fog machine in this sport, and Norris’s face is now front and centre on the marquee. “I’ll keep him honest on the golf course if he starts showing off,” Sainz joked, but the point landed: enjoy it, don’t let it warp you.
It’s a neat full-circle moment. In 2019, the Sainz–Norris pairing was the feel-good project dragging McLaren from the dark. Six years later, Norris is the one with the big trophy, and Sainz is carving out a new chapter at Williams. Different paths, same respect.
If there’s a takeaway for the rest of the grid, it’s this: you don’t need elbows of steel to be unbreakable. Norris won by being quick enough, clean enough, and calm enough when a five-time champion-in-waiting tried to pull him under. That’s not soft. That’s steel of a different kind. And it’s exactly why, as Sainz said, he’s happy for the driver — and maybe even happier for the person.
