Norris: My performance pretty average up until two months ago

Norris had a promising start for the current season, winning its opening race in Melbourne, but after that his teammate Oscar Piastri took control of the situation at McLaren with a strong run of form, which meant Norris did not win again until Monaco.

It appeared that Piastri had the measure of Norris, who suffered from a series of errors and bad judgments in qualifying and racing when matters got heated, and he hit a low in Canada when he drove into the back of his teammate, retiring on the spot.

But then came Austria, when the Briton was untouchable and won. He followed that up with a win at his home race in Silverstone, and while Piastri hit back in Spa, Norris won the Hungarian Grand Prix last weekend to head into the summer break just nine points behind his teammate in the 2025 F1 Drivers' Championship.

Facing the media in Budapest, Norris was quizzed about the aspects of his performance he will be focusing on when he comes back from the break while also assessing his season so far; he responded: "Just what I’ve been doing really over the last month, two months.

“Prior to that, [it was] not good enough, so in a harsh way, I would say I was pretty average before then. Since then, I think things have been a lot stronger.

“I still want more, still need to be a lot better, and I’m not as good as where I would like to be, but a lot of improvements have been made.

“I think I’m in a much better place; I’m happier with the car—things like that. I’ve been working hard, but I can do a lot more than I have been doing.

"So, for that reason, just more of the progress that I have been making," Norris concluded.

McLaren have done all they could to help Norris get more comfortable in his MCL39, including developing a special version of the car's front suspension just for him, which seems to have been paying dividends so far. (Reporting by Agnes Carlier)