Norris is ‘only just getting going’ – and rank British world champions

With his first Formula 1 world championship, Lando Norris joins an illustrious sporting club.

Only 35 drivers in the 75-year history of the sport have won the F1 title, and 11 of them – by far the largest amount from a single country – are, like Norris, from the UK.

All of them are different, wrote larger or smaller chapters in the history of the sport. From Lewis Hamilton, the most successful driver of all time, with seven titles and 105 wins, to the one-time winners such as Mike Hawthorn, John Surtees, James Hunt and Damon Hill – who, like Jenson Button, was in Abu Dhabi to watch Norris secure his crown.

On Sunday night in Yas Marina, the game everyone who watches and enjoys sport likes to play had already started. Where does this achievement stand in the annals? How good is Norris?

In truth, this starts as a soon as a sportsperson arrives on the scene, especially when it’s apparent they are heading for the top. And it has always been clear that Norris was. His level of talent and pace have always marked him out as a future world champion.

From there, in F1, as in all elite sport, it’s about fine margins, not just how fast a driver is, but how consistently they can achieve their best level, how few mistakes they make on the way.

And Norris, although already seven seasons into his F1 career, is only just getting going at the very peak of the sport.

He has had an absolutely competitive car only for a season and a half, a very good one only for a year more than that. And at 26, he has many more years of running at the front to come. His story, the assessment of his standing, is in its early stages.

This year, Norris has gone toe to toe with Red Bull’s Max Verstappen, acknowledged widely as the finest driver of his generation, the one who most consistently takes his equipment to the very edge of the possible.

Norris has won that battle, by two points over the Dutchman, and 13 over his McLaren team-mate Oscar Piastri, after a season that has ebbed and flowed between the three of them.

And Norris knows what’s coming now.

«I hate ever having to try and compare myself to other people,» he said on Sunday night. «This is all for you guys to decide, whether someone’s better than someone else or not.

«All I try and do every weekend is the best of what I can. But then you decide ‘he’s better than him, or he’s got a worse car and he’s doing better’. Write what you like, decide what you like.

«I certainly feel like at moments I’ve driven better than I feel like other people can. And I feel like I drove at a level I don’t think other people can match.

«But have I also made my mistakes? Have I made more mistakes than other people at times? Yes. Is there stuff Max could do better at times than me? Yes. Do I believe he’s unbeatable? No.

«But you also don’t know, do you? It’s hard to know.

«Like, they also struggled with the car in the mid part of the season. They’ve had an incredible second half of the season.

«They took advantage of the fact we had two of us fighting for a world championship. He really made the most of that, and Max drove like he is a four-time world champion. And I’m very happy that I got to race against him and try to prove myself against him.»

There is an endearing, naked honesty to Norris. He’s not afraid to face the hard questions in public, nor to express his emotions, or admit his weaknesses.

Though he said he does not like comparisons, he has done it himself at times. And on Sunday, he was admonishing himself for it. For some remarks he has made about the way Verstappen drives (he didn’t say which, exactly), or when a few years ago he seemed to downplay Lewis Hamilton’s achievements by saying his car was so good all he had to do was beat his team-mate.

«I know at times I say some stupid things,» Norris said, «and I say some things about Max, or I might have said some things at times in the past that everyone talks about, about Lewis. Some things I regret and I wish I could take back and never have come out my mouth.

«I honestly believe I give more respect to anyone else than anyone else. I give more respect to Oscar. I give more respect to Max. I try and give as much respect as I can to Lewis – he’s seven-time world champion.

«He’s the best driver – you compare him to (Michael) Schumacher – the best driver that’s ever been in Formula 1. I’m not even close to that. I might never be. I dream of those kind of things.»

This year, no one would question the fact that the McLaren has, on balance, been the best car. There have been times when Verstappen has beaten both Norris and Piastri with breathtaking excellence, when he really shouldn’t have.

The Japanese Grand Prix at Suzuka in April was an example, when both McLaren drivers failed to nail their qualifying laps, and Verstappen produced a lap of absolute perfection to steal pole position by just 0.012 seconds. And from there, the race victory.

That prompted an admiring remark from Fernando Alonso, a two-time champion and living legend of the sport.

«Only he can do it,» Alonso said of Verstappen. «He’s an outstanding driver. He’s proving it every weekend.

«Hats off for him. I think the lap he did today is only down to him. The car is clearly not at the level to fight for pole or even the top five. But he manages to do that magical laps and magical weekends. At the moment, he’s the best, he’s the reference for all of us, and we need to keep improving to reach that level.»

On Sunday in Abu Dhabi, though, Alonso was among the many offering congratulations to Norris, of whose ability he is very well aware.

The pair raced together in the same car at the Daytona 24 Hours in 2018, where Norris proved every bit as fast as Alonso. And they were team-mates at McLaren that year, where Norris was reserve driver, before graduating to F1 in Alonso’s seat the following season after the Spaniard went off to race elsewhere for a couple of years.

«All three of them, they drove amazingly well this year,» Alonso said on Sunday, «and even now with the extra pressure in the last race they qualified and finished in the top three.

«All three are world champions. Only one can win. This time it was Lando. So congratulations to him. You dream to be an F1 driver eventually and then to win the championship. That day arrived for him. I hope he enjoys and (it’s) well deserved.»

The thing is, while the McLaren was a better car than the Red Bull over the balance of the season, undoubtedly there were times when the Red Bull, at least with Verstappen in it, was better than the McLaren. It could be argued it ended the season consistently that way.

As Norris says, one of the complications of F1 is that the cars are different, and different drivers prefer cars to behave in different ways. So trying judge whether Verstappen would do a better job than Norris in a McLaren, or Norris than Verstappen in a Red Bull, is impossible. Any conclusion can only be subjective.

Norris says: «I’m sure if you compare me, if that’s what you wanna do, to all the champions: have I been as aggressive as them at times? No. Have I been as daring as them at times? No.

«But did I do just what I needed to do to win the World Championship? Did I perform consistently? Did I perform when I needed to under the most pressure? Post-Zandvoort, did I come back in the way I had to? Did I have three, four weekends of great results? I did.

«And I performed when I needed to perform to win the World Championship this season. And in the end, that’s what I needed to do. That’s all I needed to do.

«Of course, I’ll learn from everything. Moments I wish I could go back on and I feel bad for, like Montreal and things like that, I embarrassed myself. But I wish I could go back and change some things.

«Plenty of moments to learn from. I feel like I’m a better driver now, certainly, than I was at the beginning of the season.»

That Norris would reference his errors, particularly running into the back of Piastri and causing his own retirement at the Canadian Grand Prix, is typical of him.

His story has been one of personal development, and his season has been the same.

Some would argue that perhaps he has needed more help and support through his career than some of the greats – the likes of Schumacher, Verstappen and Alonso appear iron-clad.

But perhaps that’s just a perception. Great drivers – great sportspeople – don’t become that without an immense amount of hard work behind the scenes. Without analysing their weaknesses, working on them, trying to mitigate or eradicate them.

Perhaps the difference with Norris is that he just talks about this more than most.

Few people are better qualified to assess Norris and his success than Andrea Stella, the McLaren team principal.

Stella, a 54-year-old Italian, has won titles working with Schumacher and Kimi Raikkonen, and agonisingly lost them with Alonso.

«When it comes to the quality of the driver, the quality of the success that Lando achieved this season, the level of F1 drivers nowadays is very, very high,» he said.

«Probably because the drivers have already, from when they drive go-karts, they have telemetry data, they are so well-supported, and they’re just on pace. We see that for some established drivers, it’s sometimes difficult to keep up with the new generation.

«So it’s a very high-quality achievement. It’s also an achievement that beats Max Verstappen, four times world champion in a team that knows the game very well. So it’s one that is very, very high-level, very high-quality, very prestigious.»

Jenson Button – 2009

A British Williams protege, Button entered F1 aged only 20 in 2000.

However, a unenvied ability to seemingly jump into the wrong car in the wrong team at the wrong time seemed to stunt his ability to show the world his ability to full effect.

That was until he jumped into the right car at exactly the right time, just as Honda left a whole factory in the lurch, and team boss Ross Brawn steered the independent Brawn GP with few resources to the title before the advancing Red Bulls.

Jim Clark – 1963, 1965

Often cited as one of the greatest alongside Juan Manuel Fangio, Ayrton Senna, Michael Schumacher and Lewis Hamilton, Lotus driver Clark died at 32 in a crash during a Formula 2 race in 1968.

He had achieved more races wins and pole positions than any other driver at the time of his death.

Thanks to an upbringing on the Scottish borders rallying and hill climbing, his innate feel of his cars and ability to adapt to changing conditions, such as weather and tyres, saw him considered the ultimate adaptive driver – years before that accolade was so often credited to Fernando Alonso.

Lewis Hamilton 2008, 2014-15, 2017-2020

Hamilton shares the most titles ever won with Schumacher at seven.

His dominance on the track and in the garage, along with a superb racing instinct and scientific ability to sense tyre wear, means he boasts the most race wins in history, along with topping many other significant stats in the sport.

Even if the 40-year-old never wins another race in F1, his status is assured.

Mike Hawthorn – 1958

A bow-tie wearing gent with a shock of blond hair, Hawthorn became Britain’s first world champion eight years into Formula 1’s existence.

He clinched the title at the Moroccan Grand Prix for Ferrari, doing a Lando Norris by driving conservatively, after a season-long battle with fellow Briton Stirling Moss, who actually won more races than Hawthorn.

Hawthorn was killed a few months later in a car crash on the A3 near Guilford.

Graham Hill – 1962, 1968

Hill was another gent from an age when drivers risked everything in cars for which safety features were a virtually non-existent consideration.

A famously pencil-moustachioed Hill won his titles for BRM in 1962 and Lotus in 1968, beating fellow Britons Jim Clark and Jackie Stewart respectively.

A few years later his entrepreneurial spirit saw him set up his own team, before he was killed in a plane crash in 1975 returning from a testing session in France.

But his name and legacy would return to the F1 grid…

Damon Hill – 1996

The son of Graham, he was propelled to team leader by the 1994 death of legendary three-time champion Ayrton Senna three races into his Williams career.

Hill appeared less steely than his contemporaries, such as an emerging Michael Schumacher, and perhaps not as ruthless.

But a Adrian Newey-designed rocket ship from Williams saw him overcome a development phase Schumacher at Ferrari and a rough diamond debutant in team-mate Jacques Villeneuve.

James Hunt – 1976

The antithesis of laser-focused, but loved all the more for it, Hunt lived his whole life flat-out, dying after a heart attack at 45 in 1993, at the time working as a BBC F1 pundit.

Rising to prominence with the aristocratic Hesketh Racing, Hunt’s ability behind the wheel shone through his personal indulgences just enough for him to win his first and only title with McLaren.

Victory was perhaps aided by a horrifying mid-season crash for Ferrari’s Niki Lauda, which kept the Austrian out for several races, but Hunt’s victory was nevertheless heroically received.

Nigel Mansell – 1992

A British champion who arguably should have won more than one title, Mansell’s gung-ho approach saw him create as many memories, such as from fainting while pushing a car to the finish or watching his title hopes explode into shards of rubber, as did his wins.

His 1992 title ushered in a period on dominance for Williams just as cars were beginning to become technical masterpieces over the grunting monsters of the eras before them.

The first Silverstone super-hero, who captured the British imagination like no other before him.

Jackie Stewart – 1969, 1971, 1973

In an era of high technological achievements, such as the moon landing and Concorde, three-time champion Stewart was the blueprint for the modern sportsperson.

Laser-focused, and at every marketing function going, wearing the right watch and the right sponsor jacket, Stewart won the title for the Tyrrell team three times, the first time driving a Matra.

He campaigned for safety like no other driver and still often graces the paddock today, at the age of 86.

John Surtees – 1964

There were plenty of British title winners in the sixties in what was a very British sport, but the softly spoken Surtees stood out as an international talent.

A multiple world champion on motorbikes as well, Enzo Ferrari recognised his ability, with Surtees winning the Scuderia’s fifth F1 drivers’ title and as the second Briton to do so after Hawthorn.

There hasn’t been a British Ferrari winner since. No pressure, Lewis.