The McLaren driver accepted the Autosport Champion award at the 2026 Autosport Awards and confirmed to the cheering crowd that his eyes are on the title once again next season.
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“It’s absolutely the goal. Yes, it’s absolutely, absolutely the goal,” the Brit said after avoiding host Greg James’ question. “Certainly, winning one gives you a lot more confidence. It’s different for everyone, right? You have to find your own way of doing things, and you have people with more confidence and people with less.”
“I’ve never been the most confident in myself. I certainly have more now, that’s for sure. I’ve always been a see-is-believe kind of guy, but that’s even for me. So I’ve always had to see myself on the top step, see myself winning to finally believe that I can do it. But certainly last year, I managed to realize that before I did it.Advertisement
“Already halfway through the season, I felt like I had everything I needed. The people around me, the team, the car and my own ability to go out and win the championship. So the first time I really believed in myself was last year, and it turned out to be the right thing. So that was beautiful too.”
2026 brings a new wave of regulations to the championship, allowing the grid to level out as each team starts again from scratch. No one knows which teams will come out on top, but Norris is hopeful.
There have been predictions that Mercedes-powered cars (the power unit McLaren uses) will likely perform well given the Brackley team’s dominance during the previous hybrid era from 2014 to 2021. But we won’t know until the cars hit the track at the season-opening Australian Grand Prix.
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