How in-form Norris is staking his claim as Britain's next F1 champion

All three British drivers competing in the 2021 Formula 1 season made mistakes in the recent Emilia Romagna Grand Prix. All were relatively minor in the grand scheme of things, but only one of them didn’t have major consequences.

Lewis Hamilton’s slip as he lapped George Russell had him stuck in the Tosa gravel for the best part of a minute, and he then limped back to the pits for a new front wing. The combined time loss would have put him a lap behind eventual race winner Max Verstappen, and dropped Hamilton behind Verstappen in the championship standings, had he not been able to gain the lap back and then put in a recovery drive to finish second thanks to Russell’s error.

Just after Hamilton had extricated his W12 from the gravel, Russell’s attempt at passing Valtteri Bottas went spectacularly wrong, with both crashing hard after the Williams driver had put two wheels on a damp patch and spun into his rival for a possible 2022 Black Arrows race seat. Given the public rebuke he received from Mercedes chief Toto Wolff after the incident, Russell’s remonstration with Bottas in the Tamburello gravel was arguably a worse mistake, with the stewards finding that neither he nor the Finn was wholly to blame for the shunt… 

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The third Mercedes-powered British F1 racer’s mistake might have ruined his weekend but, as it came before the race day chaos at Imola, Lando Norris was able to complete an impressive redemption story.

His error was running fractionally wide – a “couple of centimetres” was Norris’s own assessment – exiting the high-speed left of Piratella on his final Q3 run in qualifying. That tiny misjudgement, coming through a corner where ultra-commitment married to spot-on car placement is needed to carry the greatest speed all the way down the hill to Acque Minerali, had big consequences. Norris’s lap was good enough for third on the grid had it been set in a fully legal manner. As it was, he was dropped to seventh, the time obliterated from the history books.

Lando Norris, McLaren MCL35M

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

Norris’s quest for redemption was so nearly over just a few seconds into the Imola race, as he slid right passing under the start gantry and almost collided with McLaren team-mate Daniel Ricciardo, then received a hefty whack from Lance Stroll’s Aston Martin as they arrived, in near-zero visibility, at the Tamburello chicane for the first time.

After losing two places on the opening lap, Norris rallied from there. The lap after the safety car restart, he brilliantly repassed Stroll and then got former team-mate Carlos Sainz Jr in one blast along the pit straight, nearly adding Pierre Gasly at Tamburello before getting ahead the next time they flashed past the pits. He then charged up behind Ricciardo in fifth, and made an iron-clad case for McLaren imposing team orders. By the end of the lap on which the swap occurred, Norris was 2.7 seconds in front of the Australian. Eight laps later, the gap was 10.3s.

It took the race’s suspension for Norris to make further progress, as that meant Charles Leclerc’s finely built advantage was erased (Sergio Perez’s pre-red-flag pitstop penalty was another slice of good fortune for the McLaren racer). At the restart, Norris pounced when Leclerc failed to stay right with Verstappen. The 21-year-old also lamented his Ferrari rival for being so accommodating when the Red Bull briefly slid off the road just before the race resumed, as that might have kept the race victory a possibility for all three.

"I am very happy for myself for recovering nicely after [qualifying]. This is what I wanted. To make sure I kind of bounced back and was where I feel like I deserved" Lando Norris 

But, once Verstappen roared clear, Norris “just judged what my race was going to be” and quickly abandoned any thoughts of chasing Verstappen down, instead focusing on the difficult challenge of keeping his softer rubber alive to the finish.

Once Hamilton had made it a three-way battle for second as the race entered its closing stages and then passed Leclerc, Norris had nine laps to defy the world champion. For five tours he did so, beautifully placing his car on the long run from the second Rivazza turn up to Tamburello, his MCL35M’s Mercedes engine grunt matching the power in Hamilton’s car. But, eventually, the soft Pirellis cried just enough, and Hamilton used Norris’s slightly slower run down the pit straight to seal a distant second. Nevertheless, Norris was rightly delighted to equal his best F1 career result.

“I don’t think you can ever be disappointed with a podium, so I am very happy for myself for recovering nicely after [qualifying],” he reflected after visiting the rostrum. “This is what I wanted. To make sure I kind of bounced back and was where I feel like I deserved and should have been.

Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing, 1st position, Lando Norris, McLaren, 3rd position, and the Red Bull trophy delegate celebrate on the podium

Photo by: Steven Tee / Motorsport Images

“It was a tough race – there was a lot of obstacles and risky moments. I almost crashed into Daniel at the start. There were a lot of moments where it could have been over, but we stayed in it to the end and made a lot of right decisions and ended up P3. It’s just a long race – with the red flag and everything it felt like a long race. It was a very good one obviously.”

But that fine result was not the sole example Norris has produced of late. Only three weeks previously, he’d finished as best of the rest behind the leading Mercedes pair and Red Bull with fourth place in the season-opening Bahrain GP. That was just as meritorious as his fifth place in the 2020 season-ending Abu Dhabi GP, in which the full contingent of ‘Class A’ runners (Mercedes and Red Bulls) occupied the top four places. Just a couple of races before that, Norris had been fourth in the Bahrain GP again, behind Hamilton and the two Red Bulls.

After Norris had secured his Imola podium, McLaren team principal Andreas Seidl rather neatly summed up what such a run of results means for the progress of a driver only just entering his third F1 season.

“What was obviously very encouraging to see as well is how Lando is flying at the moment,” said Seidl. “Two race weekends now in a row [in 2021] where he showed that he definitely made the next step as a driver. I’m very happy with that.

“Results like the ones he had in Bahrain and here is a great confirmation for himself that he’s heading in the right direction. The most obvious thing for me is the lap times he’s putting in consistently, which is the most important thing. As I said many times, ‘If these lap times don’t come, I can’t fix it’. It’s got to come from these guys.

“But in the end these lap times are also the result of the hard work he has put in with his team, with our engineering team, again over the winter in order to learn from his second season in F1 last year, to digest it in the right way and make the right conclusions and come back this year clearly being in a position to make the next step.”

Lando Norris, McLaren, 2nd position, celebrates with Andreas Seidl, Team Principal, McLaren, and his team in Parc Ferme

Photo by: Glenn Dunbar / Motorsport Images

It’s not just on the track where Norris has been impressing McLaren. His bouncy persona is a clear winner with fans getting their F1 fix in new places – such as Netflix’s Drive to Survive or streaming his Esports exploits – and he’s regularly forthright with his viewpoints in the media.

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But one of the best examples of his off-track excellence also came last time out at Imola, and it concerned his ability to successfully move on from a damaging position. After being informed that he’d lost his final Q3 effort, Norris was notably downbeat and self-critical on his team radio, nearly reaching Leclerc levels of self-scolding.

He later told TV crews that he’d “effed it all up” with his slip beyond track limits. Come Sunday, however, he was able to shake off the error and reach a glittering result. It’s a strength that not all sportspeople can achieve quickly, and is something Seidl hopes will hold Norris, and McLaren overall, in good stead as the season develops.

"I am obviously very happy with what I’ve seen so far from Lando this year"  Andreas Seidl 

“I can clearly see that also in terms of personality, character, that he made the next step, which is also normal for these young guys,” Seidl explained. “It’s also what you would expect from these guys, because they need to make these steps in their early years if they want to become top drivers.

“I am obviously very happy with what I’ve seen so far from Lando this year. [It’s] super-important now to pull this off in the first two races, weekend by weekend, which is a big challenge for a Formula 1 driver because the season of 23 races is very intense.

“The sun is also not always shining. It’s always [good to] have these great moments that we could experience again these first two weekends, and then it’s important to stay focused, keep the positivity up, the energy levels up, and pull it off again next session when you jump in the car.”

When Norris does indeed climb aboard his MCL35M at this weekend’s Portuguese GP, he will be doing so alongside an F1 race winner for just the third time in his career. Ricciardo has brought his impressive reputation, experience of seven F1 victories, and overall racing nous to McLaren for 2021. And it’s Ricciardo’s pedigree, as well as the point in his career (like Sainz, Sergio Perez, Sebastian Vettel and Fernando Alonso, he’s a non-rookie making a new start at a different team this year) that matters when considering the context of Norris’s current rise in form and results.

Lando Norris, McLaren MCL35M Daniel Ricciardo, McLaren MCL35M

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

How the young hotshot would fair against a proven entity in Ricciardo was always going to be one of the stories of 2021. Both have something to lose if they end up second best in the intra-McLaren scrap, but arguably only Norris can gain considerably if he wins out. The final result will, of course, only be known at the campaign’s conclusion, but in the first two races he has shone while his team-mate has noticeably struggled.

Ricciardo did outqualify Norris in Bahrain, and officially did so again at Imola, but in the season opener he came home seventh, feeling unimpressed with his own performance. Afterwards, McLaren said he’d sustained floor damage in early contact with Gasly. The next time out, he dutifully let Norris past when the team order came through, eventually coming home three places behind and, wincingly, nearly 30s adrift after struggling with graining on his soft tyres much earlier than his team-mate in the crucial final stint.

McLaren felt Norris was feeling fully confident in the car across the Imola weekend, once the team had successfully adjusted after a challenging opening day of practice, and reckoned that was the difference between the results the pair ultimately achieved. When it comes to getting to that point, Ricciardo feels it’s “hard to put a number on it”.

“But I think even if personally I’m not getting everything out of it yet, the thing that gives me confidence is looking at the potential of the car,” he explained. “It’s there and it’s pretty good. It can do more than I think it can, as far as just carrying more speed through the corners and [knowing] the car’s going to stick.

“So, I think there’s a little bit of trust in the car [still to come], but I don’t think it’s just like ‘turn in and close your eyes and it’s gonna stick’, a lot of it is technique as well. I try not to say as excuses from the past, but there are probably still some old habits that I need to flush out a little bit, and things that perhaps don’t work as well for this car.

“I think each lap I turn it’s getting better. So, when will I perfect it? Hopefully sooner rather than later, but naturally the more laps I do the faster I’ll get and hopefully then we’ll start to see the real potential, because it’s encouraging to be up in the mix. A lot to be excited for this year – I think the sport in general is all pretty tight, so I’m OK with it. I’m certainly happy with the progress we’ve made [at Imola], and there’s still more to come. I’ll be patient yet persistent.”

Daniel Ricciardo, McLaren and Lando Norris, McLaren

Photo by: Steven Tee / Motorsport Images

McLaren knows Ricciardo is not far from finding “these last two-three-four tenths, which then make the difference when you’re really not comfortable to push these cars to the limit”, according to Seidl. And it cannot be denied that Ricciardo and his fellow drivers adjusting to life in new teams are at a significant disadvantage thanks to the circumstances of the season.

The decision to reduce testing to three days overall, which means one and a half for each individual driver at most teams, means they are just that bit further behind when it comes to gelling with the new machinery. Plus, all the incumbent drivers gain again when considering that the majority of their cars’ design philosophies have been carried over from 2020.

But those final few tenths will surely come from Ricciardo – he’s too good a driver to be written off this early in a season, and he’s also committed to making things work at McLaren, given that he signed a three-year deal to race there. Form is temporary, but class is permanent, as the cliche goes. In Ricciardo’s case that is comfortingly reassuring.

"We showed that when we get it right, once we understand the car a little bit more, we can be there and we can fight the Mercedes and the Red Bull and so on"  Lando Norris

It also suggests that the intra-McLaren scrap is set to get closer and even more compelling as the season progresses. And that’s a very good thing for the team. Given the lack of fireworks between Norris and Sainz during their two years as team-mates (no matter how hard Drive to Survive tried to suggest there were last year!), Ricciardo eventually reaching Norris’s level and continuing to be the team player he was at Imola surely suggests, assuming he does the latter, that McLaren stands to gain further.

It’s currently in a close battle with Ferrari to retain the third place it won in such tight circumstances in 2020, with the rest of the midfield squads significantly adrift already after just two rounds. It seems as if Ferrari just has the edge on pace now, with AlphaTauri also in the mix, but Ferrari needs its drivers to be exceptional to reach its full potential. McLaren has Norris consistently delivering and Ricciardo set to improve.

“I definitely would say that it is a deserved podium,” Seidl said of the merits of Norris’s Imola result. “If you look at the two guys in the end in front of us, they are the reference in this sport, together with their teams at the moment. Therefore, it is obviously very good to finish in P3.

“But obviously a lot was happening in that race. And it’s important also to not again get carried away with this result. If you look at how quickly Max could drive away in the last stint [Verstappen was 0.7s per lap faster in the time Norris occupied second], then you see that we still have a lot of work to do.

Lando Norris, McLaren MCL35M, Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes W12

Photo by: Charles Coates / Motorsport Images

“But, overall, it was very encouraging to see in quali and in the race a confirmation for us again that the entire team, together with our colleagues from Mercedes over the winter, did a great job. I can only thank every member of the team for doing this great job – we made a great step forward again with the car. That’s obviously important in order to keep this positive momentum up. And that’s key also [in] making these steps in order to get back to the front again in F1.”

And this is why Norris’s current form matters. Although he’s still very young, he’s getting pretty experienced as an F1 driver. But, judging by his form since the final races of 2020, he’s not stagnating and is continuing to make the progress his team expects. If he can continue on this track, then there’s a very good reason for his fans to be hopeful of further and increased success.

Russell currently has the ‘on-paper’ best chance of following in Hamilton’s illustrious footsteps to become Briton’s 11th F1 world champion. After all, he’s a junior driver for F1’s dominant squad – even if its grip on that spot has been somewhat shaken by the rear-floor changes in comparison to Red Bull – and his pace to threaten Bottas should surely be Wolff’s key takeaway when analysing their crash fallout.

But the rules reset coming for 2022 means that, even if Russell does replace Bottas, it’s far from guaranteed that his new team would retain its place as F1’s leading squad. In fact, with Mercedes power, it could just as conceivably be McLaren heading the pack. The team has shown that it can engineer and build its way out of the Honda doldrums, and is continuing its upward trend. The new cars offer it a chance to jump ahead.

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After qualifying last time out, Norris said: “I guess coming into the [Imola] weekend, I wouldn’t have said we could have been P2 [on the grid, where he provisionally was when he crossed the line for the final time in Q3].

“I think it was obvious that Red Bull and Mercedes were quite a way ahead after Bahrain, but they weren’t miles away, and I think [at Imola] we showed that when we get it right, once we understand the car a little bit more, we can be there and we can fight the Mercedes and the Red Bull and so on.

“It’s nice to know, it’s good things. But we’re still very early in the season, there’s still a lot of unknowns for us. So, we’re taking it one step at a time and sometimes we really do just need to wait and see where we’re going to be.”

It’s entirely possible that Norris’s and McLaren’s respective rises will continue. And although there’s still plenty of work to do before they get there, there’s not all that much further to go before they reach F1’s highest peaks.

Lando Norris, McLaren, 3rd position, with his trophy

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images