Lando Norris fulfils destiny at rain-soaked Silverstone

Plenty doubted he would ever be able to shoulder the overwhelming weight of expectation to win his home grand prix, and understandably so. No British driver can ever consider themselves truly great, can ever consider a career truly complete or their potential fully realised, without winning at Silverstone.

One would never normally accuse Norris of being the most balanced – or mature – driver, but this was a matter of keeping his head while all around him were losing theirs.

He has finished second, third, fourth, and fifth in previous British Grands Prix. This was a faultless way to achieve a royal flush.

Wet and wild under English summer showers, most of the first half of the race played out under an intermittent safety car. Five of the six rookies on the grid retired before the halfway mark, unable to cope with an almost total lack of visibility and cars which handled like hovercrafts.

In a chaotic first 15 laps, Norris was the only driver not to change position. From there, the only way was up.

Perhaps Oscar Piastri and Max Verstappen lost this race more than Norris won it, but history is written by the victors. Both Piastri and Verstappen kiboshed their own chances within the same lap: Piastri received a brutally harsh 10-second penalty for seemingly brake-checking Verstappen behind the safety car, while the reigning champion spun out attempting to gain time before the race restarted in earnest.

But this was still Norris’s weekend. A significant portion of the 160,000-person crowd at Silverstone wore the McLaren colours of orange (they’d tell you it’s papaya) and black. Others donned the radioactive green of Norris’s helmet, while one super-fan dyed his shaven head to replicate its luminous cow print pattern. The Stowe corner grandstands were renamed “Landostand”, looking down upon a store for Norris’s brand, LN4. Energy drink giant Monster was giving out samples of its 'Lando' flavour nearby.

Even at Lewis Hamilton’s first British Grand Prix in Ferrari red – the focus was clearly on Norris.

And yet one still suspected the stage was only being set to amplify his inevitable failure. Ceding pole position to Verstappen and being out-qualified by teammate Piastri only affirmed this. In the fastest car, at a track which adores him more than he previously deserved, perhaps – everything was primed for disaster.

But on a day in which almost every driver on the grid made errors of varying degrees, Norris was flawless.

As he tried, and failed, not to sob down his radio, he told his team: “I’ll remember this more than anything”.

As a child he had to stand on his tip-toe here to even see the track. No-one has ever believed Norris did not care enough. His greatest asset and weakness will always be his inherent pessimism and perfectionism. We are less than three months from him telling anyone who would listen he felt like he had “never driven an F1 car before” after qualifying sixth in Bahrain. It is only three weeks since he crashed into his own teammate in Montreal.

At 25 – after six years in F1, 138 races, and seven wins before today – there is finally a sense that Norris is maturing enough to win a world championship.

A word, too, for Nico Hülkenberg. The German had not tasted podium champagne in his 239 prior F1 starts, but a fortunate strategy and intelligent drive earned his place alongside the McLarens. Hamilton attempted to chase him down late on, and a wet day at Silverstone should have been as close to utopian conditions as he could conceive. But it was to no avail.

There are just eight points between Norris and Piastri in the overall standings, and the prevailing wind suggests the Australian is still favourite. There is little doubt he would have won here had the FIA found in his favour mid-race.

But he made enough of an error to let doubt creep in. For once, Norris did not do the same. 

Photographs by David Davies/PA Wire, Mario Renzi/Formula 1 via Getty Images