‘Next year will be my year’ - Lando Norris fires bold warning to Max Verstappen

Lando Norris has fired an F1 title warning shot at Red Bull and Max Verstappen by boldly proclaiming that “next year’s going to be my year”.

The McLaren driver missed out on the 2024 drivers’ world title to Verstappen, but his fourth victory of the campaign at the season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix helped McLaren secure their first constructors’ championship in 26 years.

After being informed McLaren had won their first constructors’ crown since 1998 after leading Sunday’s race from start to finish, Norris confidently stated over team radio: “Next year’s going to my year, too”.

Speaking during the parc ferme interviews, Norris added: “This [2025 title] is my goal. This is our goal as a team. We want to win the constructors’. We want to win the drivers’ next year.

“I made my mistakes this year, but I've learned a lot, and I've learned a lot from Max and my competitors around me.

“As much as I'm happy now, I'm excited to get next year going.”

Norris ‘believes in myself more’

Norris feels he is now much better positioned to challenge for a world championship after learning crucial lessons during his first experience of being in an F1 title fight this year.

“One thing I've learned this year is probably to believe in myself a bit more,” Norris said.

“I've certainly not come out on top as often as I would have liked in certain moments as a driver, you know, especially in my fights against Max.

“As much as it hurts sometimes, I'm probably happy about it now that I'm going to go into next season knowing that I can fight. And I know myself, and I know more and better than anyone what I need to improve on, where I'm not strong enough, where I'm strong enough.

“You know, I'm always open for criticism, things like that. But I'm the one who knows better than the others, right? So not in an arrogant way or a selfish way, but I know that I have to improve in a lot of areas and certain things. And I feel like I've already done that quite a lot in the last three, four, five races. I feel like I've delivered some very strong results.

And the Briton is confident McLaren will head into next season as potential favourites after transforming into the fastest team in F1 in 2024.

“Next year is hopefully a year where I can go in and decide before the first race we're going to fight for a championship,” he added.

“We've not ever thought of that. We've not even had the feeling of it from a team perspective and also for me as a driver. So hopefully the next year is that year. And we obviously have a lot of work to do. And Ferrari are going to be pushing a lot.

“But that's another year. For now, I'm just going to celebrate with my team tonight and celebrate what they deserve.”