Opinion

Who slept best last night: Lando Norris

Norris is a Formula 1 world champion – and the right champion for it, too

Well, there’s a very high probability Lando Norris is actually still awake as you read this column on Monday morning.

Perhaps he’s still partying – or, even if he’s already in his hotel bed, still pumped with adrenaline as he tries to process what has happened to him this year. There’s even no guarantee he’s not on his way to some local hospital to stop his nose bleeding. After all, he suffered nose injuries right before his first F1 victory in Miami and just after winning his home Grand Prix in Silverstone. It would almost be a crime if he didn't get another nose hit after winning the world championship.

There will be those who question whether Norris is really a deserving champion. To some extent, it’s a question that can be asked about almost any of F1’s champions. “He just had the best car” is something a lot of people have said about some of Max Verstappen’s and Lewis Hamilton’s titles as well. It’s something people surely will say about Norris’ 2025 title too.

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Yet, whatever anyone thinks, there’s nothing anyone can take away from him now: he is one of the 35 Formula 1 world champions in history. He won it – and that’s the only thing that counts.

He won it his way, too. And that, possibly, matters the most.

Deserving or not is an irrelevant question, after all, but Norris is also a very fitting champion for his generation.

It’s not just about winning a title while remaining a “nice guy”. There were many drivers who disproved that funny theory that you can only be an F1 champion if you’re a bastard, or at least some sort of tough guy willing to put everything else aside in pursuit of the goal. You need to be ruthless to win an F1 title, they say. You need to have that killer instinct that Norris himself often admitted he doesn’t really have.

But you actually don’t – his title says so.

Lando Norris, McLaren

Photo by: Andrew Ferraro / LAT Images via Getty Images

A title won by someone who spoke so openly about his own mental health issues could become something much bigger for many of those who follow and support Norris.

Sebastian Vettel said it best. “I'm generally impressed by him, one thing is the driving, but more so as a human being, how courageous he is to open up speaking about how he feels,” the German said a few weeks ago on the Beyond The Grid podcast. “And that blends well with what I was trying to explain earlier where it was just a taboo. It was just like, you don't talk about it – and nobody did. And then, you had this image of racing drivers [as if they] were machines: precise and no mistakes, and it's all [about] racing. And you don't show weaknesses… And this goes across sports, ‘don't show weaknesses’ – because, you know, you don't want to show it to your opponent, blah blah blah.

“And I think it's all crap. I think we are all humans, we all have our problems that we're facing and it's great to see Lando being such a role model inside Formula 1. But also, especially outside Formula 1, and I think that's also the reason why he's so popular. Because he's giving people that something else.”

It’s OK to be vulnerable. It’s OK to be down. It’s OK to doubt and question yourself. And it’s OK to admit it, too – even if everyone tells you it’s a weakness. Because what Norris’ example shows is that talent and hard work are enough to be successful. And that you don’t need to pretend to be someone else. You can just be who you are.

Surely, Norris himself had to fight his demons. We all watched it live in Hungary just last year, didn’t we?

Lando Norris let his team-mate pass in the closing stages of the 2024 Hungarian GP

Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images

Was it right to move aside and let team-mate Oscar Piastri through, knowing he was losing seven important points while the hope of chasing down Verstappen was still alive? He surely asked himself a lot of questions during those final laps in Budapest. Should he do what he knows is right – or what a true “champion” would?

Would Michael Schumacher do it? Would Ayrton Senna? Would Max?

Of course none of them would have let Piastri through, Norris surely thought, having that awkward exchange with his race engineer Will Joseph on the radio. But in the end, he still chose to do something that Norris would do.

“The way to win a championship is not by yourself,” Joseph told his driver back then. “You're going to need Oscar and you're going to need the team.”

And didn’t we just see how right he was?

Did Oscar Piastri hand Lando Norris two vital points in Monza?

Photo by: Zak Mauger / LAT Images via Getty Images

Lando Norris won the 2025 world championship by beating Verstappen by two points – and it’s almost astonishing to think that in Monza, Piastri could have easily prevented him from scoring the three extra points he did. And had Norris not done what he did in Hungary, Oscar probably wouldn’t have been so accommodating. Maybe doing the right thing pays off after all – just not as instantly as doing the other thing…

Of course, this is all a stretch. In the end, a two-point difference can be traced back to dozens of moments. But Monza is certainly one of them.

He proved he didn’t need to become an enemy with anyone either. Not with Piastri, not even with Verstappen.

“You’ll never beat Max if you’re friends with him,” pretty much everyone told him after last year’s race in Austria. But after demanding an apology from Verstappen in his interviews after the race, Norris disappointed the sofa experts by almost apologising to the Dutchman himself when he arrived at Silverstone.

“I probably said some things I didn't necessarily believe in,” he said. “Surely, he’s too soft to become champion,” many concluded.

Lando Norris, Formula 1 world champion

Photo by: Erik Junius

But he did. And he showed along the way that you don’t need to be enemies with someone you simply compete against on a racetrack. You can still laugh, you can still party together or play videogames. Because Formula 1 is not a war – it’s just Formula 1. You can win it if you’re simply good enough as a driver.

Norris’ title is also about loyalty. And it probably wouldn’t even feel right if McLaren’s first drivers’ title in so many years had been won by someone else.

“He has to get out of there,” they told him. Yet he stayed with the team that brought him to Formula 1 through the tough times.

Yes, he’s had the best car. But he also waited for it long enough.

So… well done, Lando Norris. Kudos for staying true to yourself, too. And thank you for that.