Lando Norris stood under the spotlights at the FIA prize-giving gala, grinning at the silverware that now has his name on it. The first title is the sweetest, they say. Not everyone is prepared to toast how he got there.
Former F1 racer Robert Doornbos has stirred the pot, arguing Norris wasn’t the standout driver of 2025 so much as the pilot of the standout car. In his view, McLaren delivered the punch; Norris landed it.
It’s a comparison he draws straight from 2009. Back then, Jenson Button and Brawn GP burst out of the blocks with a rules-sweetheart of a chassis, then hung on as rivals reeled them in. Norris’ year had a similar shape: McLaren hit the ground fast, Red Bull hit back hard, and by the final rounds the margin was shrinking to fingernails. Norris clinched it with third in Abu Dhabi, ending Max Verstappen’s four-season run, but not before Verstappen had slashed what had once been a triple-digit deficit to just two points.
On paper, the top-line numbers tell a tight story. Verstappen won eight grands prix. Norris and Oscar Piastri bagged seven each. McLaren were even tipped to lock out the top two in the standings before Verstappen’s comeback turned the last act of the season into a thriller.
Doornbos’ contention is blunt: the car made the champion. He believes Norris’ McLaren was the class of the field for most of the year, and that the Briton might’ve wrapped it up with far less fuss. He also wonders aloud if the window will be as open next year, when new technical regulations land and shift the development deck yet again.
That’s the timeless F1 argument, isn’t it? Car versus driver. How much is talent, how much is machinery. It’s also a debate that sometimes forgets the simple currency of a championship: points scored over 24 Sundays. Norris managed the grind, soaked up the swing of momentum, and brought a season-long duel with a generational heavyweight to heel at the last round. That’s not nothing.
It didn’t come without scrutiny. Norris’ temperament and resilience were questioned in mid-season, the usual chorus that follows any driver who suddenly finds themselves with a title shot for the first time. Then came São Paulo, where he answered on track and, with a smile, off it. “Just ignore everyone that talks c*** about you!” he fired back when asked how he’d flipped the narrative. Focus on what you can control; let the stopwatch do the talking.
Doornbos isn’t convinced the noise washes over everyone the same way. He reckons Verstappen and Piastri are largely immune to outside chatter, while Norris, by nature, might feel it more — and in a sport of split-second judgement calls, that mental bandwidth isn’t trivial. A stray thought, a moment of doubt, two or three hundredths left on the table: at the front of the field, that’s the difference between track position and turbulence.
There’s truth scattered everywhere in this conversation. McLaren built a rocket ship and developed it hard. Red Bull, woken up, found speed and rhythm and very nearly pulled off a heist. Norris, in his first real title trench, made enough of the right calls and kept the errors to a minimum when it mattered most. He also had a teammate quick enough to take points off everyone — including him — and still threaded the needle.
If you want to put an asterisk on the trophy, you’ll always find ink. Button heard it in 2009. Nico Rosberg heard it in 2016. Champions are made in context, never in a vacuum. What can’t be taken away is the scoreboard at season’s end. Norris earned the right to carry the No.1 — and if anything, the manner of the chase sets the tone for 2026. Verstappen leaves 2025 with momentum and a clear target. Piastri leaves with seven wins and the look of a man who fancies the bigger prize. McLaren knows the bar they’ve set. Red Bull knows the bar they need to clear.
As for the “best driver” debate? That’s pub talk fuel for the winter. The paddock will move on the moment the new cars fire into life. Norris has the championship that every driver grows up dreaming about, and the burden that immediately follows it: proving it wasn’t a one-off. If 2025 taught us anything, it’s that he’s got the speed and composure to live in that pressure. The next test arrives with a fresh rulebook and a pack that’s already circling.
