Former F1 champion Nico Rosberg has offered advice to Lando Norris ahead of the new season, saying that the Brit needs to work on the “inner demons in his mind” if he is to win the world title.
McLaren star Norris came second to Max Verstappen by over 60 points in 2024, and Rosberg says that the 25-year-old “is the favourite for next year now to win the championship”, though there are still areas in which he needs to improve.
“He has shown raw speed on a level I would say even with a Max Verstappen. So the raw speed is there, it’s very, very phenomenal and it’s world champion-like,” said Rosberg.
“Where we’ve still seen a little bit of issues for him is he has some inner demons in his mind which result in the one or two mistakes. The most notable was Singapore where he was leading the race by 20 seconds and two times he almost crashed out to the extent that it was even a bit strange that it was so extreme.
“So he has to work on that a little bit still to just reduce the one or two mistakes, which is an area where Oscar Piastri is stronger.”
Rosberg, who retired in 2016 after winning the Drivers’ Championship title himself, went on to offer three distinct pieces of advice to the young driver.
Speaking to Sky Sports, he started by recommending that Norris does not “make the mistake and start building yourself towards ‘I am the favourite, everything else but winning is going to be a failure’.
“It’s just an unnecessary pressure. If you want, do it internally or whatever, but especially not externally,” he added.
“The second one would be, prepare the hell out of it. Prepare like crazy! You never know in F1 when the next opportunity comes to be world champion. You really never know because it depends so much on your team.
Finally, the German added that Norris “needs to analyse every single wheel-to-wheel battle that Max Verstappen has been in throughout the whole last three years” so that he can “understand what he could do better tactically to beat Max in those situations”.
The first race of the 2025 F1 calendar takes place in Melbourne on 16 March 2025.
