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Lando Norris goes into Sunday’s British Grand Prix at Silverstone as one of the favourites for both the race victory and the Formula 1 World Championship. One of his main rivals standing in his way is his younger McLaren teammate Oscar Piastri, who tops the leaderboard having won more races and been more consistent so far.
Racing on home turf gives Norris the chance to reset the dial for the remainder of the season, if he can harness the crowd power of Silverstone, and emulate the success of previous British world champions, including Lewis Hamilton and Nigel Mansell. Those two drivers have claimed 13 British Grand Prix victories between them.
Norris has appeared six times at the British GP, where his best result was second in 2023 followed by third last year. After his victory in Austria last weekend he now trails Piastri, who finished second, by just 15 points. A repeat performance at Silverstone by both drivers (a win is worth 25 points, seven more than second place) would further narrow that gap.
“If there’s any race I [would choose to] win in my career it would be the home race, Silverstone,” says the 25-year-old. “It’s the one I enjoy the most, that brings the most joy to my face every time I [arrive in the morning and] drive into the track. Because you experience the buzz — the atmosphere from the fans walking in every morning. When you know there’s just so many people there, cheering you on, wanting you to win, it’s a unique feeling, quite unmatched in any other aspect of my life.”
Such is his appeal among younger fans — in surveys conducted over the past four years he has was also found to be the most popular driver among female fans worldwide — Silverstone has introduced a dedicated Lando Norris grandstand.
“We worked with Lando and his management to get the message out to their core fan base and Lando’s fans have taken [the grandstand] over. I expect the other British drivers to follow,” says Silverstone CEO Stuart Pringle. “We’ve got a lot of new fans because he’s attracting a new base. As a promoter, to get to new customers that way makes a big difference.”
Norris is at the epicentre of the sport’s new fandom, which is powering F1 into uncharted territory. Almost a decade ago this would have seemed unlikely, until Liberty Media bought F1 in 2017.
He could hardly have imagined this kind of narrative as a child growing up in south-west England, playing racing video games with his father Adam, a prominent figure in the UK pensions industry. Norris senior founded Pensions Direct, part of Hargreaves Lansdown, leaving the business in 2008.
“I’ve been very lucky that [my father’s success] led to him supporting me through my whole career, and I know how lucky I was to be in that position,” says Norris. “But he got to live a little bit of his love for cars through my brother and myself going into racing. So I don’t think he was let down by the fact that we didn’t become business guys.”
Norris looks to be in the fight of his life with his Australian teammate, Piastri, having faltered in the second half of last season allowing Red Bull’s Max Verstappen to win his fourth consecutive world drivers’ championship.
With McLaren clearly the fastest car, Norris went into 2025 as the title favourite, but instead Piastri has performed better so far. Norris recognises that he has a few things to work on if he is to gain superiority over his teammate in the second half of the season. “There’s really quite a long list, whether it’s the mental side of F1 or the risk-taking,” he says. “One that I’m focused on is just maximising my team around me — my engineers, my trainer, my manager. I think there’s more lap time in that than anything else.”
Norris is famously hard on himself in public and in the media. After colliding with Piastri in the Canadian GP last month, Norris immediately came on the radio with a mea culpa, calling his error “stupid”, even though he was the one who lost out on championship points.
The people around him admit to wishing he was less candid at times, but acknowledge that this is who he is. That authenticity is one of the characteristics that endears him to the fans. Norris knows that he needs to work on consistency, “I have times when I’ve performed very well in certain areas better than others. I’ve never been as rounded as I need to be,” he says.
“Oscar [Piastri] is very quick and has pushed me a lot in the past couple of years. But I’ve dealt with that well. I’m not too worried, but I’m aware of what a threat he can be. But the more of a threat he is, the better it is for me, because I can learn from those things.”
So does Norris feel pressure to clinch the title this year, given McLaren’s strong form — and with next season’s major chassis and engine rule changes likely to shake up the competitive order once again?
“No. In fact I see more opportunity next year, because I’m very happy with the direction the team’s heading in and there’s always bigger gaps [with new rules]. You have more opportunities,” he says. “But you want to win a championship any time you have an opportunity. And for the first time in my career, that’s this year. I would love to get it done both years!”
