Is Lando Norris a Worthy World Champion?

Lando Norris, Formula One World Champion

It’s a wrap. 2025 is over. Lando Norris wins the 2025 World Drivers Championship, two points clear of Max Verstappen, and thirteen points ahead of his teammate, Oscar Piastri, who led the championship for sixteen rounds!

The immediate discussion following his crowning has been - Is he a worthy champion?

We are going to dive deeper into why people think he is, why people think he isn’t, and my personal opinion.

Why Lando Norris IS ‘A Worthy Champion’

Lando Norris has always had the talent. The raw speed he has is incredible, matched with amazing race pace, superb tyre management, and contrary to popular belief, fantastic race craft and his wet weather ability is second to none.

Lando has always had to overcome the mental barrier, he said so himself. It’s very rare in sport you see such a talent struggle mentally, and Lando did in 2024.

Early 2025 was a struggle for Lando too. After qualifying P6 in Bahrain, he said in his interview.

‘I feel like I’ve never driven a Formula One car before’

Early on this season, Lando really struggled with the car, yet was able to adapt himself to overcome these struggles. From Monaco onwards, Lando got the better of his teammate most sessions.

In fact, from Zandvoort to Qatar, Lando had beaten Oscar in sixteen consecutive sessions. (Qualifying and Race).

Norris finished the season with a 75% podium scoring rate, scoring 18 podiums in 24 races. However, if we take his three non-finishing races in Canada, Zandvoort and Vegas, he scored 18 podiums in 21 races - which is an 86% podium rate.

Which could’ve been 19/21 hence Qatar not happened, or could’ve been 20/22 had Canada not happened, but that is sports.

An 86% podium finishing rate, is equal (actually 1% more) to Lewis Hamilton’s ‘prime’ 2018 winning season, in which he scored 17 podiums out of 20 race finishes.

Lando was the victim of a multitude of bad luck throughout 2025 too. His blowout in Zandvoort is the most important one, costing him a crucial 18 points, as he was too far from Oscar, but far ahead of Max. Putting him 34 points behind Oscar in the Championship.

Furthermore, the DSQ in Vegas, whilst Oscar also suffered, Lando suffered more. As he lost a further 18 points, meaning Max Verstappen was 24 points behind, rather than 42.

In addition, McLaren’s pitstops in Baku cost Lando at least an extra 4 points, as the slow stop put him in eighth place, rather than fifth.

Then most recently, the decision to not pit Lando Norris AND Oscar Piastri in Qatar cost Lando a guaranteed podium, and maybe a potential P2 ahead of Max. A further 3 points.

There is more, but these are moments completely out of his control. Lando lost at least 43 points from bad luck alone, which is more than Max and Oscar lost.

Norris came from 34 points behind, to at most, 24 points ahead.

There is no doubt he is a ‘worthy’ champion.

I am not going to go over why he isn’t ‘worthy’ because what I have just told you proves he is.

The wild and horrendous take I see online is that Lando Norris is ‘the worst champion of all time’.

So let’s debunk that right now.

Why Lando Norris is NOT ‘The Worst Champion of All Time’ - but where does he rank up?

The wild opinion going around social media, is Lando Norris is the WORST CHAMPION EVER!

No.

No world champion is ‘bad’ but some seasons have been less impressive. For example, Mike Hawthorn in 1958, won the title indirectly due to his teammate, Peter Collins tragic death at the German Grand Prix, and Stirling Moss’ luck. Hawthorn won one race.

Phil Hill, directly won the championship, because Hill’s teammate and championship leader Wolfgang Von Trips collided with Jim Clark, killing Von Trips. Which tragically gave Hill the championship win.

Now it’s obvious the dangers of Formula One in the 50s all the way to the 2000s really. However, we are talking about pure racing talent.

The biggest comparison for Lando Norris is to drivers like Jenson Button, Jacques Villeneuve and Damon Hill.

Statistically, I would argue that this campaign from Lando Norris was better than Damon Hill’s campaign, who had a large car advantage, and a rookie teammate in Jacques Villeneuve.

Similarly with Brawn and Button, he was able to capitalise on the large car advantage Brawn had, and his teammate was a past his prime Rubens Barrichello.

Jacques Villeneueve in 1997 also had a large car advantage, but did have to fight Michael Schumacher in a Ferrari.

Lando Norris is definitely worthy.

We knew his speed, his talent, and he proved it.

And I don’t see how he can’t get any better than he already is!

Written by Fin McGovern