Norris keen to ‘live a normal few days’ and ‘forget I drive in F1’

Lando Norris says he is looking forward to switching off and forgetting all about the year in which he achieved his lifetime’s ambition of winning the Formula 1 World Championship.

The McLaren driver spent Sunday night into Monday morning celebrating in Abu Dhabi, before digesting his triumph with BBC Sport in a hotel on Yas Island, a stone’s throw from the F1 track.

Norris is relaxed, good humoured and chatty as he reviews his journey.

Next, he is heading to the McLaren factory, to analyse this year, and for work in the simulator, already thinking about next season.

There are more celebrations to come this week, including picking up the official championship trophy at a prizegiving ceremony in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, on Friday, before the McLaren Christmas party in London on Saturday.

And then, breathe.

“Honestly,” Norris says, “try to forget this season, try to forget a little bit what we’ve been able to achieve together. Forget that I drive in Formula 1.

“I don’t want to forget what we’ve achieved this season, but just try to live a normal few days of the year, and go play some golf and do some normal things and that’s it.”

The realisation of what he has achieved is beginning to dawn on the 26-year-old Briton but he says he “still finds it very surreal”.

“I was just by the pool earlier,” he says. “And when someone says, ‘Congrats, world champ’ or something, it’s definitely got a very different ring to it (than) when it’s just ‘Congrats, Lando,’ or whatever it may be.

At the celebrations, and waiting for him in the lobby of the hotel, were his father Adam and mother Cisca. The family are wealthy, thanks to Adam Norris’ success as a pension trader, which made him a multi-millionaire.

But becoming an elite sportsman still means starting learning your trade at a very young age, and a lot of personal sacrifices.

“Everything is different for everyone,” he says, “so the sacrifices you’ve made are just very different sacrifices to all the people in the world have made. So I don’t want anyone to feel sorry for me.

“But still as a family you want to spend time together. And that’s something we’ve not really done a lot of since I started when I was like seven, eight years old.

“My dad was taking me everywhere. I spent a lot more time with my dad than I did with my mum. My mum was at home looking after my sisters.

“I see my mum 20 days a year maybe, something like that. Which is not a lot.

“But certainly winning and having the achievement we did yesterday made everything feel more worth it, all those times away.

Norris says he’s “seen a lot of photos over the last 12 hours; a lot of little me”.

One of them is of him doing donuts in a kart when he was still a small boy. What would he tell little Lando if he could talk to him now?

“Probably just to have a bit more belief in myself,” he says, “because it’s something I never really had when I was younger. It’s something I always lacked.

“In that video, I was so small. I was never the big kid or never the aggressive one, that kind of thing. I’m still the same, I think, now. I would just get my elbows out a little bit more. That’s probably my only thing.”

This sort of vulnerability is Norris’ trademark. It was evident after the race, too, when he said he was “proud that I’ve proved myself wrong”.

I ask what he meant, and he says it was a reference to his difficult first part of the season, when his McLaren team-mate Oscar Piastri took the initiative, and the championship lead, and had won four races before Norris had taken his second.

By the time of the Dutch Grand Prix at the end of August, Piastri had a 34-point lead over Norris and seemed a certain bet for the title, only for Norris to rally and overhaul it all.

“When Oscar was doing a better job than me and I wasn’t doing a great job, I was like, ‘Well, you know, maybe they’re just a bit better. Maybe they can just be more consistent, get more out of the car,'” Norris says.

“I just never thought at times that it was possible. So for me to then do that for myself, to kind of go, ‘You’re wrong, you can do it,’ is a pretty incredible feeling to have for yourself.

“I wouldn’t say I’m a very selfish person, but I’ve also learned at times I almost have to be more selfish with some of these feelings and thoughts. I need that to almost make me a better and stronger driver.

“It’s just nice to almost make myself have more confidence. But I often only do that when I prove it to myself. I’ve always had that thought of, ‘Oh, the next step is such a big leap. Am I ever going to be able to perform at the level I need to perform at?’ I have more doubts than positive thoughts at those times.

It’s a trademark of all great F1 drivers that they look hard at themselves, analyse their weaknesses, and work out ways to improve, and keep doing it throughout their career.

Norris is unusual, though, in that he speaks about that process so openly. Why?

“Great question,” he says. “I don’t know, truthfully. I don’t know why sometimes I tell you guys as much stuff as I do.

“Sometimes I get told I shouldn’t and sometimes I probably do tell too much, or reveal too much, and people can see vulnerabilities in that and so forth.

“Maybe at times that’s a mistake. But at the same time at least I’m being truthful to my own self. If I’m doing a bad job, I tell myself I’m doing a bad job and I certainly have people around me telling me the truth about things.

“What I hate the most is the opposite, is doing a bad job and someone going, ‘That’s all right, you’ll be fine, things will just get better.’ Because it’s just not the case.

“I hate that kind of mentality and approach, and I’ve certainly not been brought up in that way. People around me have certainly not been like that.

Norris has achieved so much this year. Along with the world title, he has won the two races every driver dreams of winning – Monaco and his home grand prix at Silverstone.

What else is there left to do? He smiles.

“I would have loved to make my life a bit easier and win it just earlier next time,” he says. “But I won ones that people have dreams of winning. They’re some of the most incredible ones.

“The lap I did in Monaco in qualifying was the only other time probably in the last 10 years that I cried a little bit over something.

“It was the one other moment this season that I proved myself wrong, because I had that bad run of results.

“I just couldn’t perform in qualifying. Qualifying has always been my strong suit, my best. It’s been my strength since I was in karting. All my qualifying results are my thing and they weren’t at the beginning of the season.

“I went to the hardest track to do a qualifying lap. It’s not been my best track in the past.

“I turned off my (lap time cockpit display) delta for the first time that weekend so I couldn’t see if I was on a better lap, worse lap, whatever it was.

“For me to then to go there and put in that lap at the end of qualifying was one of the best moments of my career, because it was the time I almost doubted myself the most ever, in the most important season that it turned out to be.

We end by discussing what he will take from this year into next. And he gives another revealing answer.

“I take a lot,” he says, “plenty of things that I know I could have done better, I should have done better.

“But I did what I had to in the end. It was crazy close. Two points is all it was to Max (Verstappen). That’s pretty insane, especially when he was so far back.

“What do I take? I take that I can do it. I do have what it takes.