Why McLaren's fun-loving sophomore is getting the balance right

When Lewis Hamilton essayed his maiden grand prix at the age of 22 there were those who thought him awfully young for an F1 driver. Now, after a succession of teens launching into the category via the fast track of manufacturer development programmes, a debutant of that age would be deemed something of a late bloomer.

Not that it would have mattered particularly, except that the latest generation of drivers have grown up with social media and are accustomed to sharing facets of their lives which would previously have been off-limits. We know enough about many of them to make future biographers redundant. And yet - what are we actually seeing through this newly opened window? Often it's just... boys being boys.

Inevitably, then, there are those who opine that the most recent intake of young drivers into Formula 1 aren't taking it seriously enough, hence some of the rapid 'churn' of young talent in recent seasons.

At GP Racing we're not so certain that a readiness to stream yourself playing racing games in costume on Twitch equates to lack of application in the Formula 1 milieu. Why, after years of sportspeople almost deliberately being boring, should we 
not celebrate F1's exuberant youth boosting 
its box office potential?

Lando Norris is one of those drivers who has generated far more traction - both among fans and the mainstream audience - than many new names who arrive from the feeder formulae and spend their first season labouring in a midfield car.

During F1's post-Melbourne hiatus this year it was notable how he led many of his contemporaries into the streamed Esports scene - something which remains polarising for many fans but which undoubtedly filled an entertainment gap.

"I guess we just want to kind of explore and do more things that we just would normally do," explains Norris. "Rather than sticking to the 'this is what an F1 driver should do' kind of thing. Growing up, you see F1 drivers and they're amazing, but you never see them apart from getting into the car and driving.

PLUS: How seriously should we take Esports?

"So we're probably a bit more willing to be ourselves and be more normal in some ways, and to show a different side of us, than some previous generations.

It's clear that Norris and his contemporaries are building a momentum for change. Until recently many drivers eschewed publicity; Michael Schumacher guarded his privacy carefully, as does Sebastian Vettel

"And I think more people around us are also accepting change. Everything flows through that: the drivers change a bit, the teams change a bit, and F1 changes a bit. And I think that's how we're getting to the new style and new atmosphere that we have in F1 nowadays."

When Norris won the Formula 3 championship in 2017 he uncorked his champagne by leaping from the podium and theatrically bouncing the base of the bottle off the ground (he concedes it wasn't his idea in the first place, and that his old MSA Formula rival James Pull was the originator).

Repeating it when Norris secured his first F1 podium finish in Austria this year brought the trick to a global audience and it's since been copied with varying degrees of success by other racers.

It's clear that Norris and his contemporaries are building a momentum for change. Until recently many drivers eschewed publicity; Michael Schumacher guarded his privacy carefully, as does Sebastian Vettel.

Nico Rosberg was among the first to recognise the potential for social media as a personal brand-building tool, employing a professional photographer to run his Instagram. The pace of change has been rapid; Norris and his ilk now superintend their own profiles rather than delegating such tasks.

But the pinnacle of motor racing remains a demanding and unforgiving environment. Many young drivers struggle when they reach F1 because they fail to grasp an essential truth that the likes of Hamilton have long understood; staying in F1 requires a skillset extension and a different mindset from that required to get there. The job isn't over and done with once you've qualified for a superlicence.

This state of affairs has prevailed since 
before the advent of social media, but it's easy 
to see why critics of the present crop of new drivers instinctively divine a lack of seriousness and professionalism beneath all that public levity. But does less reserve really equate 
to less application?

"Everyone's entitled to their own opinions, and people come out with their own theories," says Norris, "but that's something I've adapted 
to for this year.

"I'm still enjoying myself and I think I'm showing that side, but I just have to get the balance right, of focusing on F1 and doing what 
I have to do to be the best driver I can be - and do the job I'm paid to do.

"But at the same time, you need to still have fun and enjoy yourself, and just be yourself. You don't have to be the person who just comes in and never jokes or laughs. I think you just have to get the right mixture and last year I didn't. It's something I've changed around a little bit."

That's a fascinating admission because, viewed objectively, Norris's debut season in F1 was pretty successful. He qualified inside the top 10 for his first race, and outqualified his far more experienced team-mate Carlos Sainz Jr 11 times in 21 races - though that statistic is skewed by Sainz being unlucky with engine failures. Norris was only fractionally off Sainz's average race pace throughout the year despite the gulf
 in their top-level experience.

Conversely, it was Sainz who was McLaren's biggest points earner, scoring almost double Norris's tally. Though McLaren convincingly 
won the battle to be 'best of the rest' behind the big three in the constructors' championship, 2019 proved to be relatively unusual in that fourth place wasn't as hotly disputed as it had been in previous years.

Frustrating as the protracted off-season was, it furnished Norris with more time and opportunity to review what he did right and wrong on track last season

Norris's performances in the first and last races neatly sum up many aspects of his season: in Australia he qualified well but started poorly, then got stuck behind Antonio Giovinazzi's Alfa Romeo after his first pitstop, neutralising any chance of a top-10 finish. In Abu Dhabi, Norris was too easily bullied out of seventh place by Sergio Perez on the last lap in an attack Norris didn't see coming.

Other results went south purely through bad luck, poor reliability, or McLaren's strategists having unusual off-days. And surely nobody could listen to Norris's primal scream of rage and frustration on the radio in Belgium, where a late engine failure cost him fifth place, and think he's not taking the business of F1 seriously?

Frustrating as the protracted off-season was, it furnished Norris with more time and opportunity to review what he did right and wrong on track last season, and to feel his way towards a better approach.

"A lot of it was just reflecting on last year," he says, "and having that bit more time
 off I could go through things and not only pick out the weaknesses, but also understand and look into more depth of why they were weaknesses and how to go about fixing them.

"With the time off, you're more able to do those things rather than between race weekends - sometimes there's too much to go through in that way, so you might say 'this is where we were weak,' and try random things to improve that, because you don't have the time to go into enough depth.

"I've had more time to look into many things I needed to improve on and understand what I was good at. Some things I could do last year but maybe I was a bit reluctant to - such as at the start and the first lap of races. It was my first season in F1 and I wasn't taking the risks that maybe someone would do after two or three years. I never wanted to take the risk of being too close to someone and crashing - 
I just wanted to finish the race.

"Sometimes that was a benefit when others crashed and I 
ended up in a better place.
 And sometimes I lost one or two positions because I didn't take a risk which might have paid off, but I was thinking, 'I'll give up these one or two positions and 
go from there'.

"Over the winter and into this year I was working on understanding that risk/reward a little bit more - knowing when to take those risks. And then there were other aspects like the race pace and qualifying consistency - because qualifying was good, and is still one of my strongest suits, but the consistency was maybe not so good.

"So there's been a lot of areas I've been trying to improve, even if I was strong in them. Having that chance to go through everything in detail and then coming back and trying to put it into practice is why I feel like I've been able to do
 a better job this year so far."

It's clear from his 2020 performances that Norris has taken the step forward he wanted, though he's still been prone to conservatism on opening laps. Until Monza he was well ahead of his team-mate in terms of points, though that was more a consequence of Sainz bearing the brunt of external factors.

Ferrari's plunge from competitiveness means that McLaren, even after losing some prime points-scoring opportunities to Sainz's various misfortunes, is in the frame for third in the constructors' standings. The pressure is now even more on Norris and his newly rebalanced professional equilibrium to keep delivering the points. Can he carry on getting the balance right?