Lando Norris says he is not worried by McLaren team-mate Oscar Piastri’s growing momentum in Formula 1’s title race – although admits he still does “need to get a move on” to improve his own results.

Norris lost the leadership of the Drivers’ Championship for the first time this season after Piastri won the last race in Saudi Arabia, the Australian’s second victory in succession and third in five grands prix already this season.

The Briton trails Piastri by 10 points ahead of this weekend’s Miami Grand Prix, the scene of Norris’ maiden win in F1 last year.

But Norris insisted he was “not worried at all” that it was his team-mate building momentum at this stage of the season as he expressed confidence he would get on top of McLaren’s pacesetting car to return to his best form soon.

“He’s doing a good job and he deserves it. Nothing more than that,” said Norris of the in-form Piastri.

“I don’t believe so much in the momentum stuff. Just my opinion, but I’m doing what I can.

“Clearly, I’ve made some mistakes and not at the level I need to be, but I believe I can be at the level soon enough. So, no reason to be worried. It’s round six of 24. I’m not going to say that forever.

“I know I need to get a move on and I need to get into gear a little bit, but I’m doing the best I can every weekend at the minute and trying to improve.

“But the speed is there, the pace is there, the race pace is definitely there. It’s just one thing I need to tidy up and it’s a difficult thing, but I’m confident that I’ll get it.”

Pre-season title favourite Norris and McLaren boss Andrea Stella have spoken in recent races about the difficulty the Briton has been having in putting the team’s 2025 car on the limit, with the latter accepting that changes for this season “took something away from Lando in terms of predictability” that they were now working to correct.

Norris has made mistakes costing him grid positions in three of the five main qualifying sessions this season, most notably a crash which left him 10th on the grid last time out in Jeddah.

Asked on Thursday when this change or upgrade might arrive on the MCL39, Norris said:” I mean, I certainly think it will help. I probably, I don’t honestly know the exact timeline of things.

“There’s also a mixture of things that will probably slowly come and be implemented over time.

“But I also don’t want to just rely on that myself. There are also things I’m trying to work on separately, and hopefully that’s a better fix than waiting for all the bits to come.

“But it’s good that we’re working as a team and the team are working hard to try and understand these things, because it’s been clear that there have been some differences from last year in how the car works and how it acts, and then how I’m able to get lap time out of it and perform.

“I might have to be a little bit patient with certain things. Some things are bigger than others. But it takes time, some of these things. So I just keep my head down and keep pushing myself.”

Norris hopes to put ‘productive’ work since Jeddah into practice

After a relentless start to the season featured five races in six weeks, Norris says the 10 days between the last race in Jeddah and Thursday’s media day in Miami had been “very well needed for everyone, but definitely myself”.

“It was a productive, I would say, couple of weeks,” he added. “That doesn’t mean a lot of stuff has changed for this weekend. It’s not like things are going to magically work as I would love.

“But I think there’s been a lot more understanding over the last couple of weeks of certain things, certain feelings, what could have affected things, what maybe didn’t. The majority of my sim work was based on that and trying to understand some of these things, which is good.

“But then it’s about understanding them further, knowing what measures you can take to start changing things on the car and what you want to put resource into. So, it’s a bigger thing than just saying this or that. But yeah, there’s been a lot more understanding, and I think that’s the main thing. So, as a team, then we need to work on how we can bring it to the car.”

He added: “I’m working on what to improve and trying to figure out all the things behind the scenes on what I need to do better on. It’s certainly not because of a lack of speed or lack of ability to do so.

“I’ve often led the way in Q1 and Q2, but always when I’ve got to Q3, then it’s not gone to plan. I think there’s stuff on the driving side and other things from the car side where just things haven’t clicked. But I’m working on it and hopefully this weekend I can put it into practice.”

Piastri ‘proud’ he has ‘different tools at my disposal’ in victory fight

Piastri, meanwhile, enters a race weekend at the summit of the championship for the first time in his F1 career, having outscored Norris by 33 points in the four races since spinning and finishing ninth at the season-opening round in Melbourne.

Asked about his points lead, Piastri said: “Winning the races is what is exciting.

“I think the championship lead is nice but, I think I said after Saudi, I’m much more proud and satisfied of the work and the reasons behind why we’re leading the championship than actually the fact that I am leading the championship.

“I think especially given that in Melbourne it didn’t go very well for me in the points point of view, I think it went well as far as execution goes, but considering I started with a bit of a deficit and I’ve clawed it back, I think that’s the part that I’m enjoying the most, the reasons why I’m in leading the championship.”

After claiming what turned into fairly dominant wins from pole position in China and Bahrain, Piastri believes his victory in Saudi Arabia – where he won from second on the grid after going wheel-to-wheel with polesitter Max Verstappen into the first corner in an incident that ultimately earned the Dutchman a time penalty – showed he has “different tools at my disposal” too.

“I think we’ve done just a very solid job through the whole season,” added Piastri, who is 61 points better off than he was at this stage last season.

“The three wins I’ve had so far have all looked slightly different. Bahrain was a very, very strong weekend, China was a similar weekend, whereas I think Saudi, I think the competition was closer.

“I didn’t have it all my own way that weekend and I won in Saudi because of being very strong in other areas, and for me, I hope I don’t have to rely on that every week, but I think I’m proud of the fact that I can have different tools at my disposal to try and win races. So I think that’s been a factor.

“Really the role that the team and the car plays is quite significant but to my personal level, I’ve been doing a good job so far across different areas.”

Sky Sports F1’s Miami GP schedule

Friday May 2
3pm: F1 Academy Practice 1
5pm: Miami GP Practice (session starts at 5.30pm)
7.30pm: Team Bosses’ Press Conference
8.15pm: F1 Academy Practice 2
9.05pm: Miami GP Sprint Qualifying (session starts at 9.30pm)

Saturday May 3
3.20pm: F1 Academy Qualifying
4pm: MIAMI GP SPRINT (race starts at 5pm)
6.30pm: Ted’s Sprint Notebook
7.50pm: F1 Academy Race 1
8.35pm: Miami GP Qualifying build-up*
9pm: MIAMI GP QUALIFYING*
11pm: Ted’s Qualifying Notebook*

Sunday May 4
6pm: F1 Academy Race 2
7.30pm: Grand Prix Sunday: Miami GP build-up*
9pm: The MIAMI GRAND PRIX*
11pm: Chequered Flag: Miami GP reaction*
Midnight: Ted’s Notebook

*also live on Sky Sports Main Event

Formula 1 heads to Miami for a Sprint weekend, starting this Friday live on Sky Sports F1. Stream Sky Sports with NOW – no contract, cancel anytime