His credentials as a potential Formula One world champion have been questioned but Lando Norris is unperturbed. With an almost startling level of honesty, highly unusual in the sport, the British driver has considered conventional wisdom and its implications and rejected it. That he wants to win is in no doubt but he will not allow his sense of self to be subsumed at the altar of success at all costs.
“I feel like there is a very prescribed version of how people say a world champion needs to be – overly aggressive,” he says in his McLaren team’s hospitality on a chilly day in Suzuka before this weekend’s Japanese Grand Prix. “I want to win a championship. I’d rather just be a good person and try to do well. I’ll do whatever I can to win a championship but maybe I won’t sacrifice in my life as much as some others, in terms of who I am as a person and have the ‘fuck you’ mentality people say you’ve got to have. I still believe I can be a world champion but doing it by being a nice guy.”
The 25-year-old, in his seventh season in F1, is in the opening phase of the most important year of his career. The McLaren is currently the quickest car on the grid and Norris has already taken one win and a second place in the opening two rounds and leads the world championship. He is likely to face a formidable fight however with teammate Oscar Piastri, the talented young Australian, who claimed victory at the last round in China.
Nonetheless Norris is the focal point, the favourite, facing a barrage of debate about whether he has what it takes to take the title, even with a further 22 races to go. Last season he was given no quarter by a ruthless Max Verstappen, who employed aggressive attacking and defensive driving at Norris’s expense to take the title, leading to widespread questioning of whether he was sufficiently steely to face down the Dutchman.
That he has coped with such equanimity is impressive, while he also speaks maturely of his battles with a lack of confidence and depression, and how confronting these challenges and making them public has meant more to him than anything achieved so far in F1.
There is an awareness here of the bigger picture. He is relaxed, unafraid to veer from the more comfortable topics of downforce and grip levels, calmly chewing on a banana as he considers his responses that come at length and with thought. So what then of the killer instinct, the supposedly essential ruthlessness required of top sports people and so beloved in F1?
“What people want you to believe is you have to think you’re the best in the world, you have to think you can beat everyone,” he says. “That is a great attitude to have but I don’t think it’s the only attitude you have to have if you want to be a champion.
“I want to just enjoy my life. That’s kind of the attitude that’s maybe not as much of a killer instinct. I just don’t think you have to have that to be a world champion. I want to prove you can be a world champion and not have it. But I don’t want to be pushed around and I also never want to be seen as giving things up because I’m too nice. I’ll still fight for things and I’ll still take risks and I’ll still do whatever I know I can do to be a world champion but without losing the liberty of who I am.”
What may develop into an intense battle with Piastri or indeed defending champion Verstappen is likely to test this approach but Norris is adamant he will not take the easy route and obscure his personality beneath a simplistic show of bravado.
“I don’t have to show everyone I’ve got that kind of attitude,” he says. “I feel like people go around trying to put on a front and show people that you’ve got that attitude. I can easily go and pretend I’ve got a killer instinct and act like a bit of a dick that might give people that perception.
“But there are certain things I would not do that other champions have done. I don’t have as much of a killer instinct as probably most of the drivers or most champions because I was just not brought up that way.”
Norris is clearly liberated by feeling he can and should be open about this even knowing these words may be thrown back at him if he is found wanting.
He admits to lacking confidence as a child. He grew up in Bristol, where his parents, Cisca and Adam, somewhat reluctantly indulged his need for speed after he became infatuated with a quad bike they bought him when he was five. Indeed they were so concerned for his safety as he hurtled round the garden they sold it, much to young Norris’s distress. However he was not to be denied and found his calling when he took to karting.
Norris was happy with his own company and went racing at first not with any career in mind but simply because it was fun. However a relentless march through the ranks also left him questioning himself. He never spent more than one year in any category from karting aged 10 onwards and with every success, the new year would see a new challenge, a reset where the opposition always looked bigger and faster.
“I’ve just never seen myself to be as good as Lewis [Hamilton] or even the guys I grew up with,” he explains. “Lewis, George [Russell], or Charles [Leclerc], or Fernando [Alonso], Seb [Vettel], these guys. I never saw myself being in a position of being in F1 in the first place.
“For me it was just cool to be able to race against them, more than I want to prove that I’m better.”
He has previously brought up his struggles with mental health early in his time in F1, of doubts fostered in part by this lack of confidence but it played a part in who he is; a determinedly self-critical character.
“When I had the negative thoughts of everything and about my own performances, then I would start to think negatively about the next weekend when it’s not even arrived yet,” he says. “It was visible to see on the outside how negative I was and I still am. I’m still the kind of guy that will say: ‘I did a shit job today and I did terrible and I wasn’t good enough.’
“Not many other people will probably admit to those kind of things but that will always be me. It was having a toll on me and my wellbeing.”
This led to depression he sought help for which led him to taking a hard look at himself in order to then set about changing it, notably halfway through last year when the McLaren was upgraded to become a title contender and Norris entered the fight with Verstappen. The former world champion Nico Rosberg also contacted him with advice, revealing he had been through similar circumstances.
“I am still very hard on myself, just probably a bit less publicly now than what I was in the past,” Norris says. “But I can also deal with things better than I could.”
He believes he has come out stronger, which in turn puts him in better stead for the title challenge this year. Yet it is fascinating that Norris also feels speaking out on the subject has been of such great import, but that even in doing so he felt uncomfortable.
“The worst bit of all of it is that I know how lucky I am to travel the world, get paid well. I can almost do whatever I want in my life and I know how lucky I am to be in that position,” he says. “So I feel like I don’t have the right sometimes to maybe complain or to say certain things as much as other people.
“But for me, it’s certainly been a win talking about it because of the amount of messages that I got from people, saying how much having someone in my position and being able to relate to that has helped them.”
His decision had far-reaching effects for both himself and others. “Even if it was just one message, that’s made me happier because when it’s mentioned that you saved their life because they wanted to end their life. I got quite a few of them; that makes me happier than winning a race,” he says. “That’s just my perception of life, that’s a bigger impact. Because you made a difference. Winning a race doesn’t make a difference.”
There remains an awfully long way to go but with credit to Norris, a nice guy might yet take the title on his own terms.