Johnny Herbert: Norris on Another Level After Best Career Start in Mexico

9 hours ago7 min read

The roar of the Mexican Grand Prix crowd faded into a singular, resonant truth: Lando Norris has arrived. Former F1 driver Johnny Herbert, a man who has seen champions rise and falter, pinpointed the McLaren star’s dominant performance in Mexico City as a definitive, career-altering statement.This wasn't just a win; it was a coronation, a display of mental fortitude that places Norris on a different stratosphere entirely, a level we haven't seen from him before. Herbert’s analysis cuts to the core of what separates the great from the legendary, drawing a parallel to how a young Lewis Hamilton shed his early inconsistencies to become a relentless force.The most telling evidence? The start. For years, Norris’s race starts were his Achilles' heel, a chink in his otherwise brilliant armour that commentators would dissect with grim regularity.In Mexico, however, it was nothing short of flawless—a perfectly timed launch off the line that Herbert labelled the best of his career, a controlled, aggressive move that immediately stamped his authority on the race. This single improvement is more than just a technical fix; it’s a psychological breakthrough.Herbert suggests Norris has finally learned to shed the immense weight of expectation, to silence the internal and external noise and simply execute his job with a chilling, race-engineer-like precision. Once he seized the lead, the old Norris—the one who might have felt the pressure from a charging Max Verstappen or a strategic undercut—was gone.In his place was a driver in complete command, managing gaps, controlling tyre degradation, and projecting an aura of unshakeable calm that spread through the McLaren garage. This performance, delivered under the unique pressure of a high-altitude circuit and a vocal, sometimes hostile crowd that Herbert rightly called 'ridiculous' for their booing, signals a fundamental shift.It’s the kind of statement that can define the remainder of a championship battle, a warning shot to Red Bull and Ferrari that McLaren’s resurgence is personified by a driver who has conquered his own demons. The fascinating subplot, as Herbert astutely observes, is the role reversal within the McLaren team.For much of the season, it was Norris grappling with self-doubt, publicly analysing his own mistakes with a disarming honesty that, while endearing, may have been a strategic weakness. Now, it’s his supremely talented teammate, Oscar Piastri, who is visibly wrestling with the car and the pressure, forced into the position of playing catch-up.This dynamic is classic F1; the spotlight of a title fight exposes every crack, and the balance of power within a team can swing on a single weekend. The question now is whether Piastri, much like Norris had to, can navigate this period of adversity or if the momentum has irrevocably swung in Lando’s favour.The data from Mexico is undeniable. Beyond the stopwatch, Norris’s radio communications were clipped, confident, and devoid of the frantic energy that sometimes characterized his earlier races.He was, as Herbert noted, 'unlocked. ' This newfound liberation is the most potent fuel a driver can have.It translates directly to lap time, to the marginal gains in braking, cornering, and overtaking that decide championships. If Norris has genuinely solved the start-line puzzle that has plagued him for seasons—and the evidence from the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez suggests he has—then he has removed the final barrier between himself and a sustained challenge for the world title.In a sport where the difference between victory and defeat is measured in thousandths of a second, such a 'small aspect,' as Herbert calls it, is everything. It’s the difference between being a Grand Prix winner and a World Champion, and on the evidence of Mexico, Lando Norris has finally crossed that threshold.

#[featured

#Lando Norris

#McLaren

#Mexican Grand Prix

#race start

#championship

#Johnny Herbert

#Oscar Piastri

#confidence]

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