Lando Norris

Points 12 Position 8 Date of Birth November / 13 / 1999
Place of Birth Bristol Team McLaren Car Number 4

Profile

Lando Norris is a British racing driver born in Bristol on 13 November 1999.

As a member of the McLaren junior programme, Norris made his F1 debut in 2019 when he earned a promotion from F2 to partner Carlos Sainz in the team's all-new driver line-up.

Norris would enjoy a fine debut campaign, scoring 49 points to finish P11 in the Drivers' Championship, and with a little more luck his total could have been far higher.

Sainz and Norris struck up a fantastic relationship in their two seasons together, 2019 and 2020, and despite some talk that they were a little too jovial, the pair insisted that McLaren's consecutive P4 and P3 finishes in the Constructors' World Championship would not have been possible without it.

While that partnership was brought to an end in 2021, the Brit continued to go from strength to strength, enjoying his best campaign yet. Scoring four podiums and 160 points, he finished P6 in the standings and was a long way ahead of new team-mate Daniel Ricciardo.

The duo continued together into 2022 with F1's new era of ground effect aerodynamics but it was not to be McLaren's season. Although Norris was by far the faster of the two drivers, he wasn't able to match his previous year's tally and ended the season with 122 points to sit P7.

For 2023, a totally new challenge arrived on the other side of the garage in rookie Oscar Piastri, making Norris the experienced figure of the McLaren driver line-up.

Norris was privately educated at Millfield School in Street, Somerset, leaving school before taking his GCSEs. During that time, he studied physics and mathematics with a full-time personal tutor.

His family later moved to Glastonbury to allow him to become a day boarder, giving him an opportunity to pursue his racing career.

Norris' mother is from Belgium and so he holds both British and Belgian citizenship.

Career

Norris served as McLaren's test and reserve driver for 2018, juggling that with his F2 commitments.

But on 3 September 2018, it was announced that Norris would form part of McLaren's new driver line-up for the 2019 season, partnering Spaniard Carlos Sainz who would make the move from Renault.

Norris qualified P8 in his debut race but was unable to score points, crossing the line P12. It only took until the next round though for Norris to show the true pace he possessed, finishing P6 in Bahrain.

While team-mate Sainz had suffered the majority of the bad luck early in the season, soon that burden relocated to Norris' side of the garage.

First-lap contact caused damage that would later force him to retire from the Chinese Grand Prix, while two races later a collision with Lance Stroll ended his race in Spain.

Norris would respond with P8 in Azerbaijan, but his luck was out again at the next race in Canada where a suspension failure cost him what could have been a solid points haul.

He was then on course for P7 in France before hydraulic problems bumped him down to P10, later P9 thanks to Daniel Ricciardo's penalty, before he equalled his career-best finish with P6 in Austria.

The German GP presented a fantastic opportunity to drivers like Norris in the midfield to score a shock result.

With the weather making it an absolute lottery, Norris didn't have it any easier after starting from the back of the grid due to an engine penalty.

Engine problems would later force him to retire from the race, and it was understandable why he thought it was a big chance lost.

After all, Daniil Kvyat put his Toro Rosso on the podium.

But if that was harsh then Belgium was brutal. Norris had driven a marvellous race and was deservedly on his way to a P5 finish, a result that would have been a new career-high.

That was until a power failure on the last lap, and just to make things even worse he was ultimately classified P11, the first of the non-points positions.

Italy, Singapore and Russia all yielded points for Norris and come Japan he was once again in that P5 spot.

It soon abandoned him once more though after Alex Albon steamed into his MCL34, leaving Norris with floor damage as he recovered to P11 only.

The Briton was running in P7 in Mexico before a botched pit stop wrecked his race, but Norris was able to escape the bad luck to record three more points finishes in USA, Brazil and Abu Dhabi to end the season.

Norris would finish the season with 49 points, putting him P11 in the Drivers' Championship, while his future with the team was also secure after signing a new deal in July for 2020 and beyond.

Norris also won the qualifying battle 11-10 against Sainz for the 2019 campaign.

The closeness in all aspects between Norris and Sainz continued during the 2020 campaign, which was an even stronger one for McLaren.

Norris had worked hard on improving his race craft during the winter and it paid off in spades, for his seasonal points tally improved from 49 to 97 even though only 17 races were possible due to the global health pandemic, compared to the previous year’s 21.

There was a highlight right from the get-go as Norris captured his first podium finish at the opening Austrian Grand Prix, coining the nickname ‘Last Lap Lando’ with a brilliant final circuit of the Red Bull Ring that put him sufficiently close to the penalised Lewis Hamilton to snatch P3 from the World Champion on the timesheets.

The nickname was also doing the rounds at the same venue the following Sunday when Norris passed three rivals on the final lap to move up from eighth to fifth.

Only once did Norris fail to finish a race in 2020, when his engine packed up in the Eifel Grand Prix, and that came in the midst of his worst run, also ending up out of the points in Russia and Portugal as a consequence of racing incidents that were not his fault.

Otherwise, apart from race three in Hungary, it was points all the way, 13 times in 17 attempts, with his other strongest grands prix resulting in P4 finishes in Italy and Bahrain and P5 on three occasions in total.

The last of those, in Abu Dhabi, combined with P6 for his team-mate Sainz, sparked jubilant scenes on the McLaren pit-wall as it enabled the team to finish ahead of Racing Point and snatch third position in the constructors’ World Championship.

While Norris contributed 97 points to the cause, Sainz was just ahead on 105 but it was the Briton who just shaded it 9-8 in qualifying before the Spaniard departed to join Ferrari.

Many expected Sainz's replacement, Daniel Ricciardo, to comfortably get the better of Norris in 2021, but that wasn't the case at all with the Briton very much becoming the team leader in his best campaign yet.

His season started with a bang as he followed up a P4 finish at the first race in Bahrain with a first podium of the year at Imola. He then added to that tally three rounds later in Monaco, finishing P3 again.

He remained one of the standout performers in the first half of the year, crossing the line in the top five in every race that he finished between Monaco and the summer break, claiming a third P3 finish of the season in Austria.

The second half of his season wasn't quite as successful with him suffering his fair share of bad luck, but he did so nearly take the first victory of his F1 career on two occasions.

In Monza, he crossed the line in P2 just behind Ricciardo, giving McLaren their first 1-2 in 11 years, while he led the majority of the race in Sochi after securing his first pole position with a stunning lap but dropped down the order late on when he tried to stay out on slicks as rain began to fall.

Norris ended the year in P6 in the standings with 160 points and four podiums to his name. Not only did he score 45 more points than his team-mate but also led both Saturday and Sunday head-to-heads comfortably.

After the highs of 2021, 2022 with its all new cars wasn't to be McLaren's season. Instead of taking a step forward, the team took one back with the MCL36. Norris often found himself running in a lonely seventh, either elevated by someone else's misfortune or dropping positions because of McLaren's struggles.

He scored 122 points and managed just one podium, P3 at the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix, and walked away from 2022 urging McLaren to do better...which they did.

Having signed a new McLaren contract ahead of the 2022 season, keeping him with the team until the end of 2025, Norris needed to see progress from McLaren to confirm that he had made the right decision.

2023 did not get off to a strong start in that regard, Norris scoring points only three times across the opening eight rounds as the MCL60 began life as one of the slowest F1 challengers, but that all changed when the upgrades began as of the Austrian Grand Prix, sparking a sensational reversal in fortunes.

Claiming a much-improved P4 in Austria, Norris followed that up with back-to-back runner-up results at Silverstone and the Hungaroring as driver and team confirmed their elevation to regular podium-contending status. He ended the season with six P2 results and seven podiums overall, a final tally of 205 points comfortably the highest score of his F1 career so far.

However, Norris carries a major F1 career goal into another season for 2024, having tied Nick Heidfeld for most podiums without a win with 13.

History

Lando Norris began his racing career at the age of seven and wasted no time in racking up the trophies. He won the World Karting Championships, the WSK Euro Series, the CIK-FIA European and CIK-FIA Supercup titles, all in 2013. The CIK-FIA KF World Championship soon followed.

2014 saw Norris change tact to the Ginetta Junior Championship, where he finished third overall. But then he added another title to his collection in 2015, winning the MSA Formula Championship with Carlin Racing.

2016 was another glittering year for the British driver as he won the Eurocup Formula Renault 2.0 series, Formula Renault 2.0 NEC series and the Toyota Racing series. He also continued his association with Carlin, this time in Formula 3.

A first full Formula 3 campaign in 2017 with Carlin resulted in yet another champions' trophy, capping off a fine year as he was also officially unveiled as a McLaren development driver.

Norris finished runner-up in a very strong Formula 2 field in 2018, impressing his employers more than enough to give him a Formula 1 seat at McLaren ahead of the 2019 campaign.

Networth

With Lando Norris still a relative newcomer to Formula 1, his annual pay is likely to have started from a relatively low base, but it is on the rise.

According to Forbes, he brought in $15 million in 2023, up $4m on his earnings for the previous year, consisting of a $5m salary and a whopping $10m through bonuses.

Norris also has personal sponsorships with Bell Helmets, wearegrip, PAP, Pure Electric, ADD Management and TUMI. He also founded Quadrant, a gaming and lifestyle brand that combines his love for gaming, content, and apparel. Norris also partnered with OTK Kart Group to create the LN Racing Kart.

Family

When it comes to Lando Norris' family, it is his father, Adam, who draws the most press attention.

Adam Norris has an estimated personal fortune of £200m, which has ranked him as the 501st richest person in the UK according to multiple tabloids.

Lando's father made his fortune building up one of the most successful pensions advice organisations in the business and was able to retire at the age of 36. He now focuses on his Horatio Investments company, which invests millions into start-up companies.

Lando's mother, Cisca, was born in Belgium, which means Lando has dual British/Belgium citizenship and he can reportedly speak some Flemish Dutch.

He has an older brother, Oliver, and two younger sisters.

On his Instagram account at the start of 2022, he revealed that he was in a relationship with Portuguese model Luisinha Oliveira. They broke up later that same year.

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