Lando on the lash!
F1’s new British megastar parties into the early hours… then heads off to play golf at Augusta
LANdO NORRIS was gathering his golf clubs as well as his senses yesterday morning after the biggest afternoon of his life, en route to Augusta National.
The 24-year-old always planned to start his week at the home of the Masters, but he delayed the 600-mile trip from Miami by a day — or more specifically a night — after winning his first grand prix in Florida on Sunday.
Suddenly the most talked about driver on the grid, he was under instruction from McLaren chief executive, Zak Brown, to stay and enjoy himself on site.
Brown, whose friends are Augusta members, is more than Norris’s boss. He has nurtured his talent from a young age — ‘since he was 2ft 2in and weighed 40kg’ as world karting champion a decade ago — and it was with an air of almost paternal pride that the 52-year-old American greeted his protege’s triumph at the Hard Rock Stadium.
Sounding a little hoarse but declaring himself in good form when he rang Mail Sport, Brown reported that the night’s celebrations had been ‘young and screaming’. He got out relatively early from the party staged at a reception room in the team hotel. Music blared while a sports channel replayed the race.
The function wound down at 2am, leaving Lando and his hardcore contemporaries to pursue their nocturnal revelries elsewhere.
Norris’s win owed something to luck, yes — the timely intervention of the safety car — but it was always going to take a break of one sort or another to eclipse Max Verstappen, his closest pal on the grid, and the supreme weaponiser of an already deadly Red Bull.
But once gifted the lead by virtue of a free pit stop, Norris withstood Verstappen’s intimidatory stalking at the re-start and proceeded to open up a lead coolly and incrementally to end a winless streak stretching across 110 races.
Only once had he really chucked away a potential win, in Russia two years ago, when he obstinately remained on dry tyres as the rain intensified. A lot more introspective than his impish demeanour might suggest, he was inconsolable at the loss. The team needed to pick him up.
I asked Brown whether finally having landed victory, the Bristolian might feel a burden lifted. ‘Totally,’ he said. ‘It was only a matter of time so that wasn’t a worry, it was always in the post, but to get it done is a relief for everyone.
‘No longer will it be: when are you going to get the first win? That’s an annoying question after 15 podiums. The result takes the edge off it in a good way.’
Nobody begrudged Norris his moment. Not least because anyone-but-Verstappen is an unusual turn of events. But also owing to his own popularity.
Lewis Hamilton flashed a thumbs-up from the cockpit of his Mercedes. Fellow drivers warmly congratulated him, including his first McLaren team-mate Carlos Sainz, who introduced him to golf and did much to draw him out of his shell. And then Norris threw himself into his papaya-clad team under the podium, crowd-surfing in a very Lando-esque way. ‘It’s one of the most popular wins imaginable,’ added Brown. ‘The team love him. The fans love him. when have you ever heard Lando getting booed?’ Quite the opposite. More than once he has driven away from tracks past placards held by girls asking if he will marry them. Fame comes with strings attached, though. Only last week pictures emerged of him with strapping on his nose after — as the explanation goes — he cut himself while taking a sip from a glass with a broken lip as he partied in Amsterdam.
His friends bandaged him up as if he had broken his jaw rather than scratched himself. Brown told him: ‘I want him to live his life, but to be careful in this age of social media. He is a megastar and small things can easily blow up into bigger things.’
It is clear that Norris is out enjoying himself more than he was when he was handed his McLaren race seat in 2019, but he remains essentially the same person, and hugely liked within the team.
This relationship was helped when he came in the previous year as reserve driver and handed an ‘apprenticeship’, working hands-on in every department. It helped him develop an empathy with the wider staff. They found him humble and happy to muck in. This mindset continued.
At the Hungaroring in 2020, he was to be found post-race under his car, sitting cross-legged and lost in his own world, unscrewing the bolts.
It is an image at odds with him being the privileged son of a financier father, Adam, who is worth some £200million — though such wealth was hardly a hindrance in his progression through money-chewing karting and the single-seater pyramid.
How much evolution has Brown observed in Norris over the years? ‘He used to be extremely shy,’ he said. ‘And he still is to a certain extent. Now his manner is more extroverted but not in a loud way.
‘Although he was uber-fast from day one, his race craft and maturity is now at another level.’
Brown recalled the then 18-year-old matching double world champion Fernando Alonso in 2018, when master and apprentice took to the track in the daytona in the 24 Hours.
‘Neither had driven there before and I thought, “Let’s see how they go against each other”,’ he said. ‘we found out, and I thought, “This guy is just special”.’
Norris, half-Belgian through his mother Cisca, is signed up to McLaren until at least 2028. For the second time the contract renewal was thrashed out early to keep him out of the claws of potential suitors, including Red Bull. The deal was announced pre-season but discussions opened in the middle of last year, as McLaren found their form after a long period in the doldrums. It could earn him at least £40m a year by the end of the contract.
Or approximately the going rate for a Formula One top gun.