Sitting on the terrace of the McLaren hospitality suite in the Mexican paddock, Lando Norris almost blushes as he looks at the enormous flag behind him.
It hangs from the stairwell heading up from the teams’ garages to the hospitality rooms, and has emblazoned on it an image of Norris holding up four fingers — a nod to his racing number.
“It’s weird,” the 21-year-old says. “I hate looking at myself. It is odd but it is cool, I guess. I could put it in my garden. Actually, it’s way too big for my garden.”
In his three seasons in Formula One, Norris has established himself as a fan favourite and he is slowly getting used to the extra attention.
F1 conducted its biggest ever fan survey recently and Norris was voted the second favourite driver, behind Red Bull’s Max Verstappen but ahead of his fellow Briton, the seven-times world champion Lewis Hamilton.
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Norris, who was born in Bristol and raised in Glastonbury, was the favourite among the younger fans aged 24 or under and also enjoyed unrivalled popularity among the female fanbase. His love of esports — Norris can often be found streaming himself playing games to his 1.1 million followers online — has helped him engage with a younger audience.
McLaren also took the title of the most popular team, with nearly 30 per cent of the vote, and their considerable uptick in performance — as well as the likeability of Norris and his team-mate, Daniel Ricciardo — will also have helped to win over fans.
Norris has committed to the team, signing a “multi-year” deal in May, thought to be worth $5 million (about £3.7m) a year. He is eager to repay McLaren’s faith in him, after they signed him as a young driver and gave him his first seat in F1.
“I want to win championships and I would love more than anything to do it with McLaren,” he says. “It’s the team I supported when I was a kid and I guess more importantly, the team I’ve been in since I joined F1.
“It just means more if you’re with them from the start, especially from where we were. We weren’t winning races. Quite the opposite, we couldn’t even get out of Q1 [the first round of qualifying].
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“So to be on that journey and get back to hopefully winning championships or races, I think it will be more special that way. I would love to do it with McLaren.”
The transformation in McLaren’s fortunes has been stark. In 2017, the team finished ninth in the constructors’ championship and were struggling to find their form. Zak Brown was brought in as chief executive to overhaul the team and they are now reaping the benefits of that work. Last season, the Woking-based outfit finished third in the constructors’ race and now find themselves fighting for third again this time around. They are 3.5 points clear of Ferrari in fourth, with five races remaining.
Norris lies fifth in the drivers’ standings, but is the so-called “best of the rest” behind the Mercedes and Red Bull drivers. He is yet to win a race but earned a first pole position in Russia this season (he looked set for another in Belgium, until a silly mistake cost him) and he finished second behind Ricciardo, who joined at the start of the season, in Italy in September — the team’s first race victory since 2012. It is also the only time this season that any team has pulled off a 1-2 finish.
Brown’s appointment in 2019 of Andreas Seidl as the managing director in charge of day-to-day running of team was key, but Norris says there has been a complete change in attitude within McLaren. Morale is high and for that, Norris credits himself and his former team-mate, Carlos Sainz.
The pair started together at McLaren in 2019 and raced alongside each other for two seasons, becoming good friends and spending time together away from the track, mostly playing golf. The 27-year-old Spaniard moved to Ferrari this season but they have remained close, despite the fierce rivalry on the track.
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The pair, who replaced the double world champion Fernando Alonso and Stoffel Vandoorne, lived near the McLaren factory in Surrey, shunning the glamour of Monaco in favour of spending time with the engineers and mechanics and in the simulator to try to improve the car.
“There’s not just one thing,” says Norris, who still lives a short drive from the factory. “But I think the mood is different. It started already in 2019 with the drivers. I think with Zak coming in, and a few changes, everyone was that bit more positive.
“I think a big one was Carlos and myself. I guess we were just very different to what Fernando and Stoffel were. Not just drivers on track. I can’t take anything away from Fernando and what he has achieved, but just as people and how much we interact with the team.
“It has definitely had a big impact and also, just how well we’ve got on, then that made the team enjoy it a lot more, and so on. So it started off there.
“Then with that, there came better results. And then more motivation. It’s kind of a bit of a spiral, but it gets better and better. I guess you can have a spiral and sometimes it goes down. But this has been more and more the opposite and gone upward.”
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Norris will be hoping his good form continues this weekend in Mexico. So too McLaren, who would dearly love to hold off Ferrari for that third place, and the extra money that comes with it.
