In 2024, Lando Norris quit DJ-ing. The British Formula One driver had become “heavily addicted”. “It was taking my mind too much away from what I needed to do, which is my job,” he told Peter Crouch on his podcast.
At the time, Norris was yet to win a grand prix, despite entering his sixth year in Formula One. Almost two years on, and before the race overnight in Las Vegas, he is on the cusp of becoming world champion.
Norris is someone who clearly enjoys some kind of distraction from the day job. At the age of 26, he has a keen golfing habit, a history of streaming video games (and drum lessons) online, and an esports team that has been converted into a lifestyle brand.
The ability to streamline his focus into driving itself has been the natural development of a driver growing into a sport, whether that is by using social media less or cutting out eating Weetabix for his breakfast.
It is not necessarily a question of dedication. He reportedly drove the Melbourne track 600 times in simulators prior to his first race with the team in 2019.
But he has had a reputation for being unable to turn aptitude into results. Norris has been open in the past about the mental challenges he has faced in the sport.
“If I have a bad weekend, I just think I’m not good enough and things like that,” he said on ITV in 2021. “When they start adding up over a season, and the social media side of it all, that can just really start to hurt you.”
The spotlight has further intensified through his rivalry with team-mate Oscar Piastri.
The development by McLaren of a car good enough to win world championships – they have won the constructors’ championship for the past two years – has accentuated the focus on driving capability.
McLaren had always insisted that there is no favouritism for one driver or the other. Piastri and Norris are supposed to follow “papaya rules” allowing them to race each other, as opposed to one driver being preferred.
That policy altered towards the end of last season, when it became clear that only Norris would be able to catch Max Verstappen. Before the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, McLaren said they would favour Norris on 50:50 calls and in Brazil, Piastri allowed Norris to pass to win the sprint race.
Coming into this year, the duo were expected to be competing evenly once again but scepticism around whether Norris was favoured reared its head in Italy when his pit-stop took longer than expected. Piastri was ordered to give second place back to Norris, and he acquiesced, much to the amusement of Verstappen, who went on to win.
The idea that Norris might be preferred to the younger Australian driver comes back to his history with Zak Brown, CEO of McLaren. Brown was pivotal in Norris’s early career, initially coming across the driver when he began working with ADD Management, which was looking after Norris at the time. This was prior to Brown joining McLaren but with Norris having since been developed through their young drivers’ programme, unlike Piastri who came through at Alpine (formerly Renault), it is easy to see that Norris would provide the satisfaction of being a home-grown champion for McLaren.
Norris has also proven to be loyal to McLaren. He has ignored overtures from teams like Mercedes and Red Bull in favour of trusting in the process. Piastri has since admitted that the decision in Monza played on his mind leading into Baku, when he was forced to retire after crashing his car. He has not reached a podium in his four races since, with three consecutive fifth places, his lowest since the season opener in Australia.
Norris has been a divisive figure in the past. He has been outspoken about fellow drivers, in particular Lewis Hamilton and former teammate Daniel Ricciardo.
When Hamilton broke Michael Schumacher’s record for grand prix victories, Norris said: “He’s in a car which should win every race, basically. He has to beat one or two other drivers, that’s it. Fair play to him, he’s still doing the job he has to do.”
Norris was later forced to apologise but the comments around Hamilton particularly grated given the different backgrounds of the two British drivers. While Hamilton’s dad worked multiple jobs to fund his son’s journey into motorsport, Norris’s father had effectively retired by the age of 36 having sold the pension company he co-owned. The Sunday Times Rich List in 2022 estimated his net worth at £200m.
The 26-year-old occasionally comes across as thoughtless and uncaring, and in the hyper-competitive world of driver rivalries, backed up by legions of online fans, even throwaway comments can leave lasting grudges.
Sometimes Norris just comes across as a little sheltered or naive. He left the £14,000-a-term Millfield School without any GCSEs. Growing up in motorsport is an undeniably all-consuming experience. It is hardly surprising that the people it spits out can be strange.
“He is a GP winner of the future, and ultimately a world champion,” said the publicist Martyn Pass, who worked with Norris a decade ago, in a 2023 biography of the driver.
With two races to go after today’s – in Qatar and then Abu Dhabi – this is the point where the platitudes become prophecies. It is up to Norris to deliver.
Photograph by Kate McShane/Getty Images