Norris pledges not to be F1 wild child
True to his image as the fresh-faced, clean-cut poster boy of Mclaren, Lando Norris claimed yesterday that he would forsake all temptation on his debut season in Formula One.
“I find the negative effect of a hangover outweighs getting drunk,” said the 19-year-old, the youngest Briton ever to drive at the highest level. “You won’t see me out in London getting hammered.”
Quite what his predecessor James Hunt, who won a world title for Mclaren in 1976, would have made of such a remark is anybody’s guess. But this is a sport that has changed beyond recognition over the past 43 years.
While today’s turbo-hybrid engines sound like hairdryers compared to the screaming V8s of Hunt’s colourful era, the drivers are quieter, too. Where Hunt’s idea of downtime was to quaff vast amounts of champagne in the company of airline stewardesses, Norris would prefer to remain cooped up inside his flat in Guildford playing computer games.
“I don’t like drinking at all,” he said, as Mclaren’s 2019 car was paraded in a lavish presentation at their Woking headquarters. “I haven’t done it for a while, so I don’t think I’ll get into that. I enjoy simulator racing more – it’s my passion.”
As Gil de Ferran, Mclaren’s sporting director, observed, Norris has spent almost his entire life strapped to a kart or a racing car. The dream of F1 is one he has pursued obsessively, to the exclusion of most outside interests.
The son of Adam Norris, a retired pensions investor worth around £200million, he attended Somerset’s Millfield School but failed to excel academically. Now that he has earned promotion to a coveted race with the most famous marque in British motorsport, Norris realises that he faces a year of unforgiving pressure.
“I’m sure there are going to be times when I do things wrong, when everyone’s going to think I’m terrible and rubbish,” said Norris, who was last season’s runner-up in Formula Two.
“It’s very different getting to F1, knowing that when I make one small mistake, a lot more people are going to see it. The aim is to become a better driver.
“I’ve spent a lot of time over the winter to try to prepare for this moment, but there are some things you can’t learn until you are on track. No driver is perfect.”
Norris indicated that he would not be seeking any advice from Lewis Hamilton, who occupied the same position as an F1 rookie 12 years ago – albeit in a Mclaren capable of victories, and with a reigning double champion in Fernando Alonso for company. “I haven’t rung up Lewis, I don’t have his number,” said the teenager, who has instead identified motorcyclist Valentino Rossi as his childhood idol. “I shook his hand at the press conference in Abu Dhabi last year but that’s about it.”
Zak Brown, the Mclaren chief executive, who refused to rule out the possibility of the retired Alonso returning to test the latest car in Barcelona next week, said: “Lando is very mature for his age. We think he is ready, otherwise we wouldn’t have put him in the car.”