Lando Norris does not even try to suppress a playful laugh of self-recognition as he considers the proposition that, unlikely as it may seem, one of Formula One’s most striking talents shares a common trait with Springfield’s beer-drinking, couch jockey and all-round pop-culture hero, Homer Simpson.
“I am a big overthinker, I do think a lot about different scenarios good and bad, and I am absolutely critical of myself,” Norris says. So when it’s put to him that this sounds like the comical internal arguments Homer has with his own brain, the 24-year-old hoots in acknowledgment.
“Yes, I talk with my brain a lot,” he replies with a broad smile. “I am always in my head. It’s not that I don’t know how to focus, I am very good at thinking about many different things, at being able to focus on what I need to focus on. It’s more that I think a lot about certain things and I am not happy until I have an answer to whatever that issue or problem is.”
The driver, in his sixth season in F1, all of which have been with McLaren, rightly views this as a strength but is also conscious that it could be perceived differently when his thoughts are thundering about, clamouring for attention.
“I am self-critical and I know it can look bad from the outside, absolutely,” he says. “I watch my own interviews and I look so annoyed and unhappy. It’s because my mind is whirling, I’m thinking: ‘Why did I make a mistake? What happened if I did this or that? What if I had tried something else?’
Norris is far from the tousled-haired youth who made his F1 debut in 2019. He is physically bigger, the jawline is stronger and he is more confident, more at ease as befits a young man who has handled growing up in public with no little assurance and will compete in his 108th race in Japan this weekend.
His open embrace of the emotions racing inspires is one of the most endearing aspects of his character and has made him one of the most popular of the new generation of drivers. The emotions have ranged from his sheer despair after a win slipped away in the wet when he stayed out on slicks in the rain at Sochi in 2021, to his fury at blowing a potential pole in Qatar last year that could have put him in position for another shot at that maiden win.
The McLaren team principal, Andrea Stella, noted that Norris’s embrace of this is why he is becoming a more complete driver and why he has such huge faith in him. “It’s 360 degrees,” Stella said. “He goes from the self-reflection of the driver understanding when you don’t deliver, [then to] why?” It is, Stella has insisted, “world champion material, the underlying talent, the mindset, the work ethic. It’s all there”.