Heading towards August 2017, McLaren was in a very tough place. The team scored just 11 points from the opening 11 round of the season, nine of which appeared at the Hungarian Grand Prix. This is the final race before the summer closure.
However, they had to handle in-season tests before many teams could take a little break to lick the wounds. It started in Bahrain that year in April and then two more days of running on hanger rings before summer break began.
On the second day at the time, the team first ran the 17-year-old Landororis on the Modern Formula 1 machine. Norris was in the middle of the title-winning Formula 3 season in Europe ahead of his Formula 2 campaign and a step up to race in Formula 18 months later.
Even at his promotion, times were not easy for McLaren. Norris’ first season ended with the team leading midfield but far drifting over the top three teams. Although there have been progress, there was only one podium to display from the year, 594 points behind Mercedes.
Going from that point onwards to dominate the rankings this year is a shift to some degree.
“I’m proud of what we achieved and the journey we had,” Norris tells the racers. “I wish I could win the race earlier, did you have the chance to do what you did this year?
“When Lewis (Hamilton) entered Formula 1, they dominated the championship, which was completely different from when I came in 2019.
“I’m not really making a fuss about these kinds of things. I’ve wanted to win a race before, but when other opportunities were there elsewhere and some other places and other places, I could have stayed with the team and won a race before and tried and achieved more at a faster point.”
Last year, he delivered the title of McLaren’s first constructor since 1998, but the driver escaped Norris as Max Verstappen. The double is on this time, but none of the individual crowns are yet to be guessed by anyone, whether Norris or Oscar Piastri.
“It’s good to be alone as a team (we’re fighting for the title),” Norris admits. “That’s amazing. And just think about it, it’s just us two, it’s great.
“After that, you can see everything in each other. But it’s a bad thing and sometimes he has a better weekend, so I’ll have a better weekend than me.
“So you can’t get away, you can’t easily ride on a good weekend because we’re good at building each other and learning very quickly.
“So it’s tricky, but nothing else has changed. We’re still getting along well. We still talk about the same amount. All meetings are the same. The difference is that we can race freely, but I think it’s a completely different way from last year.
Norris got his first taste of a modern F1 car as a teenage F3 F3 Frontrunner during his 2017 test in Hungary. Mark Sutton/Getty Images
“I think we’ve had a few different experiences, but I think it’s a good thing. It’s about him and me and me towards him. That’s not all we can focus on – it’s still about thinking about other people – but that changes how it changes.
The target remains to get his full potential, but Norris admits to fighting for the title.
But there are other aspects he had to learn to retreat, especially in his performance and his hopes of becoming a champion, in terms of how fans and media are invested.
“You have to learn to be more paralyzed by all of them,” he says. “And that’s not a bad thing. It’s just that you can’t rely on them. It’s not good to rely on them. Perhaps it’s not that I wasn’t relying on, it’s just being influenced and convincing them too easily.
“Now, you love when people say great things, and when people say bad things, it hurts a little, but that’s it. It shouldn’t affect such a short moment, like you’re reading something or seeing something.
“I think it’s very different for everyone, some people come in and don’t care much about it and it’s not affected.
Norris’ use of the word “paralysis” is not to say he ignores comments and critics, but the 25-year-old says he tries to take the positives that come from sponsoring him without taking responsibility for their reactions when things go wrong.
“It’s not that I don’t care about them, because when I have all the fans, supporters, etc., they want me to do better than anyone else,” he says. “And you’re going to ride all of that and try to use it for your benefit. But of course, that means there are more people complaining when things go wrong when things go wrong.
“I think you almost have to force yourself into external circumstances and to force yourself to be more attached to what you’re doing as an individual. The teams near me around me – my trainers, my engineers, my friends – stick to the fact that they can really guide you and guide you.
“But from the outside it’s a little better and a bit worse, and we have to learn to be more paralyzed with it.”
It’s obviously a challenge to deal with all of the different aspects of the title fight, but it’s welcome. And what Norris could have dreamed about eight years ago when he first arrived behind the wheels of a then-McLaren car in Hungary.
“More than anything, what makes me happy is that we are in the position we are in,” he says. “This year is the time to show what we have, and it wasn’t.
“I’m proud to stick with my team, and I’m also proud of what we’ve achieved over the last 24 months. I think that’s the coolest part of everything.”
