Lando Norris: "nerve-wracking but special" to lead McLaren on track

“It’s a little bit nerve-wracking,” said Lando Norris about shouldering the responsibility of McLaren F1’s immense factory, “but also a special feeling at the same time.

“They work day and night to make the car that little bit quicker, to get pieces on the car quicker, build a beautiful bit of machinery that I then go and have fun in,” he added.

Speaking to the BBC podcast F1: Back at Base, Norris explained the extent of the work that goes in before they even get on the track. “It’s a massive team, a massive family, so trying to maximise every single person, trying to get everyone working in their best way, in their most efficient way, is something that’s very important and something that’s changed quite a bit in the last four years.

“There’s been a lot of changes, a lot of people coming and going,” he added.

Last season of course, Norris pushed eventual title winner Max Verstappen almost to the end, and the pair’s on-track duelling provided a much-needed bit of drama to what had until then been yet another unstoppable march by the talented Dutchman.

But Verstappen’s prodigious pace and performance in the first part of the season ultimately sealed his fourth title with two races to spare, leaving Norris to pick up the pieces in second place.

No doubt that’s motivating him ahead of the new season, eking out the smallest of gains back at the factory to help him on track. “The role that I play of being the driver… motivating the team, keeping them excited and happy,” he said, noting how an entire week’s worth of work back at Woking would yield only 200ths of a second. But it’s all worth it.

“Every week you’re trying to find an amount of time in the car, whether that’s half a tenth or one tenth,” he said. “But that little extra that you get every time by pushing the team a little bit more, going to speak to them, trying to give better feedback and working on yourself, can easily pay off at the end of a season.”

It did of course at the end of the 2024 season – McLaren took the constructors’ title after a 26-year drought. But Norris concedes he needs to be better. “It’s been a year where, actually, I’ve been pretty proud of my performance,” he said on the podcast. “Proud of performing under the pressure that we’ve been under, delivering when I have.

“I’ve made my mistakes and, at the same time, I’ve learned a lot from those mistakes.

“Confidence is something I’ve struggled with in the past and probably I’ve only built enough up throughout this season [2024] to go ‘I’m confident that I’m a good enough driver to win a championship next year’, and I can bring a fight to whoever wants to fight me for it,” he added.

Roll on March.

Want to listen to the Back at Base podcast? If you’re in the UK, listen first on BBC Sounds. If you’re outside the UK, listen wherever you get your podcasts