Born: 13/11/1999 Bristol, UK
A firm favourite among F1 fans, Norris has earned a loyal following with his witty approach to media engagements, his active interactions on social media and regular appearances on gaming streams.
But it is on track where Norris has successfully built on the great promise shown through the junior ranks to emerge as one of the most exciting propositions among F1’s ‘new generation’ of racers.
Norris’ burgeoning star quality was evident long before his F1 debut in 2019, with his name being mentioned in high-profile circles by the time he’d progressed from karting, where he became the youngest CIK-FIA World Champion in 2014.
He went on to clinch more silverware on his graduation to open-wheel racing with titles in the MSA Formula (2015), Formula Renault 2.0 Eurocup (2016) and FIA European Formula 3 (2017) coming in his rookie campaigns.
Though George Russell would halt his clean sweep upon making his Formula 2 debut in 2018 with Carlin, his race-winning route to the runners-up spot was enough to convince McLaren – as part of its Young Driver Programme – to promote him to an F1 drive for 2019.
2023 - McLaren
6th – 205 points
After a rocky start to the season Lando Norris was able to bring home seven podiums for the McLaren. Norris came second at the British Grand Prix, after leading his home race for four laps, and was the first McLaren driver to get a podium at the Silverstone Circuit since Lewis Hamilton in 2010.
The British driver then took second place at the Hungarian Grand Prix, his first consecutive podiums in Formula 1. He then added additional excitement to the trophy ceremony when he accidentally broke Verstappen’s first place trophy - a handmade Herand worth £34,577 = during his trophy celebration.
Norris also secured four consecutive podiums starting with second place at the Singapore and Japanese grands prix and then came third at the Qatar and United States grands prix.
2022 - McLaren F1 Team
7th - 122 points
McLaren’s initial failure to get on top of the MCL36’s handling issues upon F1’s transition to radical new technical regulations left Norris playing catch up during the early stages of the 2022 F1 season, but his form picked up as more upgrades were applied.
Though limited to just a single podium – at Imola – the consistent Norris reached the points in all but five of the 22 races, helping him on to seventh in the final standings.
2021 - McLaren F1 Team
6th - 160 points
Buoyed by McLaren’s switch to more dependable and quicker Mercedes V6 hybrid power units for this season, Norris took another step forward in 2021.
Failing to score in just two of the 22 races, Norris was a regular visitor to the podium with third place finishes in Imola, Monaco and Austria.
Despite missing out on the chance of a first F1 win in the Italian Grand Prix in order to protect a 1-2 finish for the team behind Daniel Ricciardo, second place at Monza signalled a career-best finish and spurred him onto sixth in points.
2020 - McLaren F1 Team
9th - 97 points
After his promising rookie campaign, Norris affirmed his reputation with a stellar sophomore campaign in 2020.
Producing one of the performances of the year outright in the delayed 2020 F1 opener at the Red Bull Ring, Norris – running fourth on the road – was pitched into contention for a maiden podium when Lewis Hamilton was handed a five-second post-race penalty.
After coming into the final lap just over five seconds adrift of the Mercedes driver, Norris’ storming fastest lap on the last tour got the gap down to just below the magic marker, thus securing him a maiden F1 podium.
Following it up a week later with a fifth-place finish at the same venue – after passing three cars on the final two laps – Norris went on to crack the top ten in 13 of the 17 races, seven of which were classified inside the top six.
He ended the season in ninth overall, just eight points shy of the top six.
2019 - McLaren F1 Team
11th - 49 points
Followed in the footsteps of Hamilton, Kevin Magnussen and Stoffel Vandoorne to become the latest McLaren Young Driver protege to be promoted into F1, Norris formed one-half of a fresh line-up with Carlos Sainz.
He quickly adapted to the rigours of F1, scoring a best finish of the season (sixth place) in only his second race in Bahrain, a result he’d repeat later in the year in Austria.
In all, 11 points finishes helped McLaren to fourth in the constructors’ standings – its best result since 2012 – even if better results go wanting in frustrating circumstances, such as a power unit issue in the Belgian Grand Prix that dropped him from fifth to 11th on the final lap, and a late collision with Alex Albon at Suzuka that also scuppered a top-five finish.
