Image source, Getty Images
Image caption, Norris, aged 14, celebrating success in the 2014 Ginetta Junior Championship, where he made his car racing debut
Lando Norris has become Britain’s 11th Formula 1 world champion, and delivered on a destiny that seemed set since he was a young boy.
The 26-year-old, whose father Adam is a multimillionaire who made his fortune as a pensions trader, started racing karts at the age of eight, and was on pole position for his first national event.
Norris, who has dual Belgian nationality through his mother Cisca, was born in Bristol and grew up in Glastonbury. Educated at Millfield in Somerset, as his career blossomed, it became increasingly hard to find time to attend school, and there was a fair bit of home tutoring involved.
His junior career marked him out as a potential future F1 world champion. His family’s resources ensured he was provided with everything he needed to allow his talent to flourish. And when he made it to F1, he immediately proved he had what it took.
‘Everyone tells me he’s the greatest thing since sliced bread’
Image source, Getty Images
Image caption, Aged 11, competing in the MSA British Cadet Kart Championship at Whilton Mill in September 2011
Norris has won the title in his seventh season, and spent his entire F1 career with McLaren, with whom he has kept faith as they have grown from also-rans to F1’s leading team.
His boss there is American Zak Brown, McLaren Racing’s chief executive officer, who has been involved with Norris since before either were at the team.
Norris’ career was funded by his father until he reached F1, and he was guided through his karting years by his manager Mark Berryman.
But when Norris took his first steps in car racing, they did not have the necessary contacts. They turned to Brown – then the boss of a sports marketing agency called JMI, and well known in F1 as a deal maker and sponsor finder.
Initially, Brown felt “this is not what I do”. But Norris’ team were persistent. Brown says: “I thought: ‘All right, everyone tells me he is the greatest thing since sliced bread, maybe I can help.'”
When Brown started paying attention, he realised Norris was the real deal “pretty much right away”.
He was not the only one. Stephanie Carlin started working with Norris as he made his first steps in the junior categories aged 15, continued to do so until he made it to F1 four years later, and is now McLaren’s F1 business operations director.
“He was just phenomenally quick,” she says, “and he was able to execute it really well. There’s been an underlying talent and speed and pace that’s existed from the first time he got in a car.”
Image source, Getty Images
Image caption, Shortly after his 14th birthday, Norris receives a trophy from three-time world champion Sir Jackie Stewart at the 2013 Autosport Awards
‘Welcome to Formula 1’
Norris was almost certainly too good not to make it to F1, but his path was eased considerably when Brown joined McLaren in 2016, a couple of years after he started working with Norris.
In January 2018, Brown paired 18-year-old Norris with then McLaren driver Fernando Alonso, an F1 legend, in the Daytona 24 Hours sportscar race in his United Autosports team.
Norris gave himself the target of setting a faster lap than Alonso – and achieved it. He stunned people with his pace in the wet at night before the car eventually retired.
“Fernando Alonso, one of the best racing drivers in the world, Lando was his match,” Brown says. “Cold tyres, middle of the night Daytona, if you asked Richard Dean, who ran them, who was better, he wouldn’t know.”
When Alonso announced he was quitting F1 at the end of 2018, Norris was the obvious replacement, and McLaren started giving him experience in practice sessions.
Having proved faster than one McLaren race driver, Stoffel Vandoorne, in his first outing, his next was at Monza, with Alonso in the other car.
Brown recalls: “They’re swapping times. Fernando has just set his time, so he’s done, and obviously paying attention to what times Lando is doing. He’s asking.
“We come on the radio and we go: ‘Fernando, Lando’s on a lap, get out of his way.’
“First sector, same 10th. Second sector, Lando is half a 10th up. Third sector, on the radio, Fernando: ‘Sorry, I didn’t see him.’ Lando: ‘Fernando just blocked me!’ And we all just giggled on the pit wall, like, ‘Welcome to Formula
Read More