| Nationality | British |
| Date of birth | 13 November, 1999 |
| Place of birth | Glastonbury, Great Britain |
| Age | 21 |
| Height | 170 cm |
| Weight | 64 kg |
| F1 career | 2019 – |
| Best classification | 6th (2021 and 2023) |
| GP started | 104 |
| Best race classification | 2nd (x7) |
| Podium places | 13 |
| Pole position | 1 |
| Front row | 5 |
| Fastest laps | 6 |
| Points | 633 |
| Races led | 7 |
| Official website | https://landonorris.com/ |
(stats after 2023 F1 season)
Lando Norris is one of the youngest drivers ever to enter Formula 1 and young Briton started his career in karting as he won the CIK-FIA KF-Junior Super Cup in 2013.
A year later, at the age of 15, Norris finished third in the CIK-FIA Euro KF four-race championship, won the CIK-FIA World KF race with the fastest lap and finished third in the British Ginetta Junior Championship for HHC Motorsport.
In 2015, Norris won the British Formula 4 Championship, which consisted of 30 races on 10 tracks, and in just one race the British scored no points and secured eight victories and 15 podiums for Carlin team. In the same year he participated in Italian Formula 4 (nine races) and German ADAC Formula 4 (eight races), which helped him to gather additional experience for such a young driver.
At age 17, Norris had an incredibly successful 2016 racing season. He won the Formula Renault 2.0 Euro and Formula Renault NEC 2.0 championships with Josef Kaufmann Racing team and won the Toyota Racing Series New Zeland. He also competed in British Formula 3 in which he finished eighth in the standings despite competing in only 12 out of 30 races and scored four victories.
Norris won the prestigious ‘McLaren Autosport BRDC’ award for the fantastic 2016 season and became a member of the ‘BRDC Rising Stars’.
After a brilliant 2016, Norris moved to European Formula 3 in 2017, convincingly winning the championship in first attempt with nine wins and 20 podiums in 30 races and also finished second in the prestigious race in Macau.
In 2017, Norris tested Formula 2 car and competed in the last F2 race in Abu Dhabi for the Campos Racing team while in summer he tested the McLaren Honda MCL32 F1 car at Hungaroring where he finished second fastest behind Sebastian Vettel.
He tested the 2017 McLaren’s F1 car on the post-season test in Abu Dhabi in 2017 and that year he accumulated 1054 kilometers in a F1 car. Sensational success and fantastic adaptation to the F1 car secured Norris a membership at the ‘McLaren Academy of Young Drivers’ and he became a member of the ‘BRDC SuperStars’.
In 2017, Norris proved that he was definitely ready for Formula 2 and started his 2018 F2 campaign withvictory from pole position in the first race in Bahrain, but that were his only pole position and only victory in all season. By the end of the season he was eight more times on the podium and finished second in the championship behind Mercedes’s George Russell junior, but he admitted that his attention was distracted by frequent McLaren F1 car tests.
In 2018, Norris has tested for McLaren for five days and has collected 2270 kilometers of F1 car experience and the team’s leaders were convinced that he was a better choice for the future than Stoffel Vandoorne.
In addition to the five test days, Norris made his first official F1 appearance for McLaren in 2018 Belgian GP and in total he participated in seven first Free Practiece sessions (Belgium, Italy, Russia, Japan, USA, Mexico and Brazil), adding another 150 laps and 828 kilometers in McLaren 2018 F1 car MCL33.
The impressive junior career and the good impression he left behind the wheel of F1 car convinced McLaren that Norris was good enough to be their F1 driver in the 2019 F1 season, which was confirmed on September 3, 2018.
Norris first F1 team mate will be Carlos Sainz who already has four years experience in Formula 1 in the third team after Toro Rosso and Renault campaigns from 2015 – 2018.
Norris did well at the start of his F1 career by placing his McLaren MCL35 in Q3 in the first race of the season in Austria, and although he only finished 12th he redeemed himself already in the next race in Bahrain where he finished a great sixth.
This remained his best result of the season, which he repeated in Austria, with great one lap pace as he beat more experienced Sainz with 11:10.
Although he was not as good in the race as Sainz, Norris showed great potential and lived up to high expectations after success in the lower rankings.
He finished the season in 11th place with 49 points, five places behind Sainz and with 51% of his points, and scored in 11 out of 21 races, in two races less than his team-mate.
McLaren kept the same driver lineup for 2020 and Norris and Sainz were again very even in both qualifying and the race. The young Briton was again more successful in the qualifying (11:10) after they were even before the final race in Abu Dhabi and Sainz was again better placed in the drivers’ standings.
In 2020, Norris’ racing skills got improved, which he himself admitted at the end of the season, and he also improved the way he uses sensitive Pirelli tyres, which is the key to success for about last ten years.
Norris finished the first race of the pandemic-hit 2020 F1 season in Austria on the podium after pushing hard in the final laps to finish ahead of Hamilton who received a five-second penalty for the incident with Albon.
Norris set the fastest lap in the last lap of the race and after Hamilton’s penalty finished third which is his first and so far only podium in his F1 career.
In the last race of the season in Abu Dhabi, Norris drove a fantastic lap for fourth place, just two tenths behind pole position, and in the race Norris and Sainz finished fifth and sixth and secured third place in the constructors’ standings for McLaren.
Sainz finished sixth in the drivers’ standings for the second season in a row in 2020, but Norris narrowed the gap and finished ninth with 93% of Sainz’s points.
Norris’ new teammate for 2021 will be Daniel Ricciardo, who arrived at McLaren from Renault, and for the young British driver it could be the biggest challenge in his F1 career.
From the very start of the new 2021 season, Norris established himself as the team leader with impressive performances in the first two races in Bahrain and Imola, finishing fourth and third respectively, and came third in the drivers’ standings.
In qualifying he was convincing against Ricciardo with 15:7, and in Russia he secured pole position on a wet track and led until the rain near the end of the race when he mistakenly decided to stay on dry tires.
Besides Imola, Norris was also on the podium in Monaco where he finished third and was a second faster than Ricciardo all weekend, and on the second weekend in Austria he qualified second behind Verstappen and finished on the podium for the third time.
The fourth and last podium of the season was achieved by Norris in Monza, where he finished second behind teammate Ricciardo, and due to the drop in McLaren’s form, the Briton lost the fight for the fifth place in the driver’s standings, which was taken from him by Sainz in Ferrari.
Regardless, Norris still achieved the best finish in his F1 career in sixth place, in his third season, and in 2022 he will still have the same teammate Ricciardo.
Norris continued to dominate team-mate Ricciardo in 2022 and, despite McLaren’s drop in competitiveness compared to 2021, managed to finish seventh in the standings, just one place behind his 2021 career result.
In Imola, Norris finished third behind two Red Bulls, which was his only podium of the season, and in the rest he drove very consistently and almost constantly brought important points for the team in the fight against Alpine.
In the qualifiers, Norris had an astounding 20:2 ratio against Ricciardo, to whom the team did not extend the cooperation for 2023, but decided to bring the young talent Piastri.
McLaren had a poor start to the 2023 season due to a late change in development direction for the new car, and Norris scored just 12 points in the first eight races.
But he equaled that performance in just one race, the Austrian Grand Prix, the ninth race of the season where McLaren delivered a major improvement package that changed the course of their season.
Norris and Piastri became constant threats for the podium and high positions in the points circle, with Norris finishing on the podium seven times, including six second places.
The Briton finished the season in sixth place, as in 2021, but with 45 points and three more podiums, while McLaren showed that they can return to the fight for victories.
