The F1 leader who's arrived at a crucial time

Leaders, leading, leadership - all things we're hearing a lot about during the coronavirus pandemic. From inspirational or incompetent political leaders (delete as appropriate) to individuals leading by example or displaying leadership in minor acts. Often, even without meaning to, people can make a big difference.

There's no on-track motorsport action to discuss now, no collisions to micro-analyse, no technical developments to debate. As a result, many people have taken to finding other ways to enjoy and remember the championships they love - whether that's by watching reruns of old races, viewing films or documentaries about famous characters or events, or watching or taking part in motorsport Esports.

That last form of escapism is enjoying a significant boom as it is one of the few online equivalents of sport that is reasonably close to its real-world counterpart. Formula 1 squads have had Esports teams since 2018 (although Ferrari only joined in on the fun a year later), and many drivers have their own at-home simulator rigs and set-ups.

But there's one driver in particular who has been front and centre for the current Esports explosion in motorsport, who is playing a leading part in making the most of a difficult situation, and is doing so with his usual humour and engaging personality.

At this stage a year ago, McLaren's Lando Norris had just scored his first F1 points in the 2019 Bahrain Grand Prix, his second F1 start. In 2020, with the F1 season joining the rest of world sport on a seemingly indefinite hiatus, the 20-year-old is still managing to grow his profile and persona via his Esports exploits and likeable social media presence.

Using Autosport.com's search function, at the time of writing Norris's name features in precisely the same number of articles published in the time since the Australian Grand Prix was due to go ahead as six-time world champion Lewis Hamilton...

Although more drivers are getting involved as the lockdown weeks go by, Norris has largely been the face of the current boom in Esports interest within the motorsport world. He has long been involved in that sphere, and the numbers he attracts on his Twitch channel (where he recently raised over $12,000 for the World Health Organisation's COVID-19 response fund after pledging to shave his head if his followers donated over $10,000) demonstrate his star pulling power.

"Seeing so many people getting into sim racing - not all of it and definitely not most of it, but a small part of it is because of me, being one of the first people to do that from Formula 1" Lando Norris

His online antics - including calling rivals Max Verstappen (another long-time Esports participant), Alex Albon and George Russell, as well as McLaren team staff during the recent Bahrain Virtual GP - make for popular clips across the various social media platforms.

"It's just a good thing, I guess," Norris tells Autosport when asked how he feels about being a figurehead for the motorsport Esports movement. "I mean, I'm not trying to do it for any of that, I'm trying to do it because I enjoy doing it.

"Everyone that's racing online is enjoying doing just that, racing each other and still being able to go and 'race' cars, which is what we all love to do. But then, yeah, I guess it's just a bonus - it is the only thing going on at the moment, it's the only really interesting thing for a lot of the motorsport fans and people that want to watch racing and watch us drivers.

"I mean, it's good for myself as well. But I'm not leading the way, I don't think. But I think I have played a small part in leading, I guess. Seeing so many people on Twitch now and getting into sim racing - I think not all of it and definitely not most of it, but a small part of it is because of me, being one of the first people to do that, really, especially from Formula 1. So yeah, I think it's cool to see more people getting into it."

It won't feel like it to many, but the Melbourne race that should have opened the 2020 F1 season was to have taken place just under four weeks ago. That event did begin, with the F1 paddock travelling to the far side of the world and proceedings getting as far as the morning of the opening practice day, just a few hours from when the on-track action was supposed to begin.

But, of course, that was as far as it got. The night before, a member of staff from Norris's McLaren team tested positive for COVID-19 and, while quarantining 14 more employees who had been in close contact with that individual, the squad withdrew from the event. Hours later, the 2020 Australian GP was called off and the paddock departed, with most people arriving home to the lockdown measures that many countries have implemented around the world.

The Melbourne event had, understandably, an unusual feel, with the drivers kept carefully separated from the media during the build-up interviews, and few pre-season publicity events went ahead. Norris, who was "in my hotel room ready to go to sleep" when news of McLaren's withdrawal broke, "had a bit of a feeling already on Thursday that the race was not going to go ahead".

"We all knew, within McLaren, what was going on at the time," he continues. "And yeah, luckily - sadly, at the same time - only one guy had got it. I said to my engineers, kind of as a joke, really, that I just had a feeling that we weren't going to be doing the race. And I said to my engineers, 'I'll see you later in the year.' And on Thursday evening we got the call that the guy came back positive.

"Then it was the decision for McLaren to pull out of the race, which was the absolute right decision for all of us. I got the call from Andreas [Seidl, McLaren team principal] that that's what was happening - that was the decision we were making as a team. Which was completely understandable. It wasn't super-dramatic or anything, but I felt as a team we took all the right measures.

"Ironically, it was one of our team members who got it, but at the same time I think we took a lot of precautions and did the necessary things to try and avoid it as much as possible. Because I think we were doing a good job from that side of things, but at the same time we were the unlucky team which got it first.

"It's just sad but it happens. The world, it goes around - you pass people, you do things. You just act normally and you can get it. So yeah, it was just a bit unlucky, I guess. But it was the spark of us getting to where we are."

F1 now finds itself in the middle of a new spring shutdown, with the championship organiser and the FIA agreeing to pull forward the traditional August factory closures, and extending them to 21 - now 35 - days. All races until June's French GP have been postponed or cancelled and it is still unknown when and even if the 2020 season will get under way. Much, it seems, depends on the length of the lockdowns and how long it takes for them to be safely lifted to allow normal life to resume.

Because no one knows when F1 can return, the championship's stakeholders have taken several extraordinary steps to try to lessen the impact that the coronavirus shutdown will have on the teams. Even before the full economic consequences of the current situation are understood, the teams know they will keep racing their 2020 cars into next year - with a 'superseason' bridging the end of the current year and 2021 also entirely possible - and that the planned rules reset has been pushed back to 2022.

"When you're doing sim racing, you still get a good feel for how you control the car, but an F1 car is different to cars you drive on the simulator" Lando Norris

McLaren became the first team to reveal it had taken steps to bring costs under control during the current lockdown in the UK, where the government allows companies to furlough staff - and will pay 80% of their wages to a maximum of £2500 per month if their positions are kept open. The team has temporarily furloughed a number of its staff, while the rest - including CEO Zak Brown, as well as Norris and his team-mate Carlos Sainz Jr - are taking voluntary pay cuts.

"It's such a big company that you've got to think about its future, and what's the best thing for every single person, man or woman, that works within McLaren," says Norris. "And of course, that includes myself and Carlos.

"The best thing for all of us is to make sure that when the world is back to normality, and everything's good again and everything is sorted, that we can all get back to work and all resume our jobs and our lives as normally as possible. And that counts for the 700/800 people within Racing [McLaren's motorsport division].

"But then the thousands of people within McLaren [Group] and McLaren Automotive too. So yeah, I think it's just the best thing for all of us to be able to enjoy this little bit of time off, let's say, and make sure we can come back and resume like normal."

In the meantime, there are ways the teams and drivers can continue working remotely. This includes the usual health and fitness preparations, as well as studying data and information from previous events and pre-season testing to work on specific performance details or further understand how their new machines function.

In the coming months, Norris will rely on a "hard drive with pretty much every single thing that I need" to keep his knowledge fresh, and his home simulator - a Pro Sim unit built by GP2 race-winner Adrian Quaife-Hobbs - to keep his driving skills as sharp as they can be via Esports.

"If I ever need to look at anything or want to, or we're talking over the phone and want to discuss stuff, then we have references regarding the onboard data," he says. "I can quite easily just look at some data or some video and stuff like that.

"So it's just about trying to keep your mind within what Formula 1 is like. When you're doing sim racing, you still get a good feel for how you control the car and stuff, but then it's the feedback - how an F1 car is different to cars you drive on the simulator, as you don't tend to drive the F1 car as much on the simulator.

"It's just trying to keep or bring yourself back to the reality of what it's like in F1 compared to just driving on the simulator. So yeah, whether it's looking at some video or some data or something like that, it's a good thing."

For Norris, one of the additional drawbacks of F1's coronavirus hiatus - and also the social-distancing rules impacting many of us - is that he can't spend time getting to know his new race engineer face to face.

Norris's equally amusing and touching final radio exchange with his former performance engineer - Andrew Jarvis - at the conclusion of the 2019 Abu Dhabi GP is a shining example of the personality he brings to F1 and its Esports equivalent.

"Jarv is now officially living in America," says Norris. "So I got a new engineer who I can't go and see, I can't go and work with. So, that's going to be one of the most difficult things, really - making sure that we get back on terms with how I'm going to be working with him when I get back to racing."

When that moment does come, McLaren will resume its journey, trying to get back to the front of the F1 grid. With Norris and Sainz joining last year, the team seemed to turn a corner with the MCL34 and finished fourth in the standings on 145 points - its highest total since 2014. Sainz also returned McLaren to the podium for the first time since that year's Australian GP, when he took third in Brazil.

At the conclusion of winter testing back in February, Autosport reckoned McLaren was in the mix at the front of the midfield scrap, but was behind the usual top three squads and, crucially, Racing Point. The fight for constructors' championship placings is likely to be even more important whenever the new season does begin, as the larger prize money on offer for the higher places will benefit teams that may be up against it in the expected economic contraction.

"Just because I've done it for a year, people gain a bit of respect and therefore listen to you a bit more. I didn't know if I'm classed as a veteran, but I feel more confident within myself" Lando Norris

But until the typical frantic development race can resume alongside normal life, there's not a lot that can be done to improve a team's potential.

"No one is allowed to do anything right now in the factories," says Norris, "so I think the cars are literally going to be as they were once we get back to driving. Of course, we'll have a bit of time to get back to work and get back in the zone before we go to the first race after all the shutdowns, but at the same time I think the pecking order will be the same."

Developing the MCL35 to improve on the areas targeted by McLaren from its 2019 car was a key focus of Norris's off-season. He said at the end of testing that the car felt "less on edge" and was "more stable and consistent".

The natural benefit of completing a successful rookie year - Norris finished 11th in the 2019 standings with 49 points and took 'Class B' wins in Bahrain, Austria and Singapore, with another cruelly taken away when a power problem cost him fifth place in the final laps of the Belgian GP - is a confidence boost.

This will help both Norris and McLaren as their journeys continue together, with the team knowing it can trust his feedback now he's proved what he can do with a competitive package.

"I was in a much better place, coming into my year two with knowing things I needed to work on and so on," Norris says of his approach to 2020 testing. "That just allowed me to have a better strategy, a better focus on pre-season testing, knowing those areas that I needed to work on."

It was apparent in testing just how relaxed and at ease Norris is in the F1 paddock. Even before his fame increased in recent weeks he was speaking frankly about a range of topics - from the continuing disruption of dirty air on close racing, to the impact of reduced testing days for Williams rookie Nicholas Latifi.

At the conclusion of the final 2020 pre-season test, Norris casually interrupted an Autosport filming session, while holding what appeared to be an enormous slice of garlic bread, before sauntering on his way. He was an incognito figure as he walked off, and yet one entirely at ease with his own actions, and willing to comment in-depth on his squad's potential, as well as F1's wider issues.

When asked if the confidence he gained from completing his rookie year has made him feel like more of a voice within F1, Norris says: "Yeah, I guess a little bit, but I'm still much better at driving than anything else.

"But at the same time, just because I've done it for a year, people gain a bit of respect and therefore listen to you a bit more.

"I didn't know if I'm classed as a veteran, but I feel more confident within myself, and I think at the same time just because you're in year two, and with McLaren as well, then you are kind of seen as a bit more of a professional, not someone who was just there for one year. You do become in a way that bit more of a spokesperson where people rely on you, they listen to you and they take actions from things you say.

"Say you're leading the car developments and you're leading the engineers and aerodynamicists. If they want to develop the car in a certain way, you know your actions and what you say can lead to things going better or maybe worse, basically.

"So I do need to be a bit more precise with the things I say and not just be kind of a rookie and always saying 'yes' and agreeing with everyone."

At the end of his first season in F1, Norris said that he felt he had been at times "too jokey" and vowed to find a more focused compromise in his second campaign. He knows that once everything does go back to normal he's "going to have to switch my focus a bit more back to what I need to be doing once we are able to go back to McLaren and start working harder", but there's good news for fans of his antics.

There can be little doubt that Norris has helped to show much of motorsport the way in adapting to the current difficulties and striking the right tone in a challenging environment

"I won't be home as much, I won't be able to stream as much and I'll have to take things a bit more seriously again," he says. "But I'm not going to change, I'm not going to try and be someone I'm not.

"I just need to make sure I say the right things at the right time and not come across basically as someone who's just trying to be jokey and not taking things seriously. I just need to be the same me - I can still make jokes and stuff - but I need to make sure I'm seen as the guy who's focusing and every now and then makes jokes, instead of the guy who is always joking and sometimes looks like he's focusing. That's all."

Successful leaders show who they really are, what they're made of, and in doing so engage their audience. There can be little doubt that Norris has helped to show much of motorsport - and other sports - the way in adapting to the current difficulties and striking the right tone in a challenging environment.

He is a young driver, probably with a bright and long future ahead in grand prix racing. It's worth celebrating the way he's currently lifting spirits for many people trying to find their usual fix of sporting escapism, and at the same time understand how he arrived at his current place of confidence.

Norris truly is one of F1's great characters, and he's in the spotlight at exactly the right time.