The Australian Grand Prix 2025 was all about perfection for Lando Norriswho achieved pole position, victory and the fastest lap on the Melbourne circuit. A year that the Englishman from McLaren closed with the conquest of his first world title, and which he will have to defend starting this weekend in Australia, where he will show up with the #1 printed on the nose of his MCL40. A mission that the Woking team, winner of the last Constructors’ World Championship, will also have to carry out.
In interviews given to the media while awaiting free practice, scheduled from 10.50pm tomorrow evening, the reigning world champion first underlined his enthusiasm for the start of the new season: “I’m excited to be back – he commented – I’ve always had fun here. It’s always a great place to start the season, there’s great weather and it’s just another year to look forward to. There are so many opportunities, more races to try and win to celebrate. We did well in Bahrain; nothing to get excited about, but we know we’re well underway. I’m just excited to get started and we’ll find out more about where we stand in the next few days.”
The Briton, however, remains cautious. After the pre-season tests, the reigning champion believes that there are differences between this year’s car and the 2025 one, especially in the first phase of the season, but expressing a certain tranquility in the team’s work: “I certainly have good confidence in myself, which is always a nice way to start the season, as well as in the team. We probably don’t have the same level of confidence in our outright speed as we did at the start of last year, but we’re confident in our ability to get back to where we want to be over the course of the season. It’s not that we get here and we’re confident we’re going to win, but in recent yearsparticularly two or three years ago, we managed to change things in a season where everything was about development and updateslearning about cars. This has been one of our greatest strengths in recent years. It doesn’t matter where we finish here, in China or in the first races of the season: we are confident that over the course of the year we will be able to get back to where we really want to be, and that’s something we all look forward to.”
