In the round-up: Lando Norris says he wanted to gain his place in Formula 1 on merit, not because of his father’s wealth.
In brief
I never wanted dad to buy me an F1 drive – Norris
Norris’ father Adam had an estimated wealth of £200 million when his son Lando joined McLaren’s junior driver programme in 2017. But while the family funded Norris’ ascent to Formula 2, he says he wanted people to recognise his ability is the reason he reached the top and not make “comments of I’m in the position of where I am because of [my dad].”
“I never wanted him to pay for me to come into Formula 1,” Norris told the High Performance Podcast. “That was one goal. He could support me until Formula 1, or let’s say to Formula 2, to get to that point, give me those opportunities and so on.
“But I personally, as a feeling, I wouldn’t want to come into Formula 1 having to pay for it. [It was a] bit of a mentality thing, not have the mentality of ‘I’m not here because I don’t deserve it, I’m here because I’ve paid for it’. I never really wanted that at all.
“I feel much prouder to say that I’m here because McLaren brought me on and I was a McLaren junior driver. They brought me on, I got better, and then I was the official driver. It makes me much happier saying that then the opposite one.”
However Norris acknowledged he was fortunate to have more support earlier in his career than some of his rivals. “I have to know that to a certain extent I’m lucky for the opportunities that I got and the fact he could just support me into Formula 2 was already a lot more than the what people get. So, I also know that on the flip side.”
I’ve only urinated in an F1 car once – Hamilton
Lewis Hamilton says he’s only succumbed to the temptation to relieve himself during a grand prix once in his 340-race career.“I never drink in the car, I just forget most of the time, so I usually have that weight taken out,” he told Hot Ones. “It’s only like 500ml. But other drivers, quite a lot of drivers as far as I’m aware, pee in the car.”
“I’ve drunk a lot before, so literally just before we get in the car, I go as many times as possible right at the last minute, but I just can’t bring myself to pee myself,” he said.
However he admitted “I have once, it was Singapore. It was like two or three years ago. The Safety Car came out and I was like, ‘I’m dying’. And honestly, when your bladder’s full with the G-Force that you’re pulling is the most uncomfortable [thing].”
“You just can’t focus on your job,” he added. “So I remember trying to go and I really had to force it. But luckily I have had to do it like I only once.”
Injured Pin to miss FREC round and Le Mans
Doriane Pin will miss the upcoming Formula Regional European Championship round at Zandvoort after fracturing her ribs at Spa. She will also be forced to sit out the Le Mans 24 Hours but expects to return for the F1 Academy round supporting the Spanish Grand Prix.
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Links
Motor racing links of interest:
Africa's new F1 fans who want a race on the continent (BBC)
'Toby Venter, head of the OT Venter group of companies, which owns the Kyalami circuit, says that the mooted attendance of Russian President Vladimir Putin at a summit in South Africa plus the docking of a Russian ship at a naval base scuppered the plans.'
'Anthoine (Hubert) was a terrific guy on and off track and it was such a cruel set of circumstances. I knew instantly it would be serious and then I felt an immense responsibility to the championship and my broadcast team. At that point you push all the emotion out and just deal in the facts that you have available.'
Vesti: 'My focus is Formula 1' (Formula Scout)
'If you ask any team principal if they want to sign the exact same (quality) driver, but one who doesn’t do anything, who’s just doing the reserve driver, the simulator, (versus) the same driver but (driving) different cars, different championships, plus the simulator plus reserve and he’s keeping sharp driving on new tyres and challenging himself and staying sharp mentally, I’m pretty sure they’ll choose the driver who continues to work on himself and continues to push the limits of a race car.'
Formula 4 stars set to shine bright on FIA Motorsport Games stage (FIA)
'To further level the playing field, data from the fastest car in each practice session will be made available to every driver in the field to study and review.'
Nato: Shanghai podium 'feels good after the hard work' (Formula E)
'For Portland, we're predicting it to be similar (to Shanghai) in terms of energy-saving races, so strategy will be really important.'
Mick Schumacher: 'WEC is a great championship to be part of' (FIA WEC)
'The A424 is a very pointy race car. It’s a car that likes to be driven to a good point where it is aggressive. Hopefully, we’ll be able to extract some more pace out of it. It’s a great car in the way that it is set up, especially for some of the events that we’re going to.'
Pruett’s cooldown lap: Indy 500 (Racer)
'Larson did the opposite. He walked in looking somewhat embarrassed and made a specific point to apologise in the sincerest manner to us for being late. It wasn’t a throwaway line; he wanted to be sure his apology registered.'
We always endeavour to credit original sources. If you have a tip for a link relating to single-seater motorsport to feature in the next RaceFans round-up please send it to us via the contact form.
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Social media
Notable posts from X (formerly Twitter), TikTok and more:
A source tells me that Gene Haas has no intention to leave #F1 in wake of closure of #NASCAR team.
— Jenna Fryer (@JennaFryer) May 30, 2024
Incredible. 😍
400,000 LEGO bricks to build this life-size MP4/4!#Senna30 pic.twitter.com/ZNIXTPYaUC
— McLaren (@McLarenF1) May 30, 2024
Ex-US president Donald Trump, who was 20 days into a court case over falsifying his business records when he attended the #MiamiGP and was pictured with @FIA president @Ben_Sulayem and @McLarenF1's @ZBrownCEO & @LandoNorris, has been found guilty of all 34 charges he faced.#F1 pic.twitter.com/YToAYY9ZTc
— RaceFans (@racefansdotnet) May 30, 2024
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- Find more official F1 accounts to follow in the F1 Twitter Directory
Comment of the day
Max Verstappen is right to turn his nose up at the World Endurance Championship’s Balance of Performance rules, says Lynn-m:
It’s supposed to be a sport, It’s supposed to be a competition not just between drivers but also the engineer’s, designers etc… The whole point of the sport is to design a car, engine etc… that is faster than the competition and to beat them by as big a margin as possible.
The BoP is just artificially manipulating the performance so that those who do a better job don’t get rewarded for it while those who aren’t able to produce a competitive package get artificially moved forward. It goes against the very essence of what the sport is supposed to be about.
But then modern fans have been indoctrinated by the show over sport Netflix nonsense so likely don’t even know what real racing and real sport is anymore. The great days of the past where it was a true sporting competition are long gone in the modern show over sport era of gimmicks and artificial nonsense.
You spend millions designing the best car and best engine only to then be handicapped to oblivion whenever the organisers feel like manipulating the results.
That is not a sport and it does nothing but make a mockery of what Le Mans used to be!
Lynn-m
Happy birthday!
Happy birthday to The Dutch Bear and Duncf1!
Nick T.
31st May 2024, 4:04
Is basketball not a sport because they’re all playing with the same ball? I also think balance of performance in an endurance series is insane since it’s one of the disciplines and series that has most emphasized and made interesting by the engineering aspect rather than wheel to wheel racing. It also makes it a semi-pointless exercises for manufacturers. However, some series are based on making it mostly about a driver skill. I still consider those legitimate series.
Dex
31st May 2024, 8:22
Endurance racing is not only or even mostly about the drivers, but also having a car that can endure an endurance race (by design, but also maintenance during the race and of course driver management; something we see in F1 now for the wrong reasons).
You have mentioned basketball, but the analogy would work only if the teams were responsible for designing and producing their own balls, or at least working on their setup (if that was a thing), in case of customer teams.
In motorsport driver is only (a very important) part of the equation, but we have spec series for a reason, and Le Man’s series is supposed to be all but that, as it beats the whole point.
Having a car BoP makes as much sense as having a driver BoP, and just imagine how would that one look.
Tristan
31st May 2024, 5:33
While I agree with the cotd, it’s just not that simple.
Look at the outcry from fans after the first couple of races in F1 this year, Red Bull dominating again, no racing, yadda yadda yadda. People bemoaning the sport turning into a spec series and restricted engineering as a means to tighten the field.
If you loosened that up and turned it back into those great days of the past where motor-races were a “true sporting competition” it would just mean one team gets it right and everyone switches off. There’s a lot of competition for peoples attention, and one team out front and a lack of genuine competition is not going to be winning any viewer counts. Less viewers means less sponsors and less production, it’s not easy.
Then you have the teams themselves, Porsche, Ferrari, Audi, Nissan, whoever don’t want to be miles behind with no chance of catching up either, it’s embarrassing, and a waste of their money.
While I agree that balance of power is a poor solution, I think this trend of blaming sports wanting to put on a good show reeks of rose-tinted glasses, and longing for a yesteryear where entertainment was limited that just doesn’t exist.
anon
31st May 2024, 7:47
Tristan, I would agree that the COTD is one of many who are harkening back to an idealised past that never existed, and the examples given with the WEC are a case of that.
For an extremely long time, the complaint was that there was a lack of competition in that series, especially in the top categories. When Audi was winning in the early 2000s, their success was only faintly lauded because they were competing against privateer outfits that couldn’t hope to compete against a major manufacturer; similarly, in more recent times, Toyota were given little praise too when it was also the only manufacturer competing against privateer entries that could only spend a fraction of what they could.
At best, it resulted in a category that was considered boring; at worst, there were many questioning whether the category was really viable and whether it should just be scrapped, such was the lack of competition. Similarly, it might have appeased those so called purists in principle, but few of them would watch in practice because they also moaned that it was boring and too predictable.
Jere (@jerejj)
31st May 2024, 6:00
Good mentality, although even some more successful drivers had some form of financial help to reach F1 back in the day.
I still fully understand him not wanting people to claim he’s only racing in F1 because of massive financial help, a la Stroll.
Whichever Singapore GP, that must be some more distant past one, i.e., pre-COVID hiatus, as I feel like I’ve heard or read him saying something similar already before.
However, he isn’t the only one who’s ever done so, & merely watching the 2018 Grill The Grid videos gives a better idea.
Unfortunately for Vesti, the F1 train effectively left a little while ago, so his chances of becoming a full-time driver have only gotten lower & lower, with teams having their priorities on other drivers.
COTD is spot-on.
SjaakFoo (@sjaakfoo)
31st May 2024, 6:26
It’s better to just acknowledge your privilege instead of denying it. And I’m happy Norris is one of those people that do, to an extent.
ludewig
1st June 2024, 12:04
Indeed. Denying the obvious truth just makes him look like an out of touch elite, which to be honest, he probably is.
montreal95 (@montreal95)
31st May 2024, 7:00
Disagree with COTD. It’s the same old tired argument of the so-called purists and it’s completely obsolete in modern spectator sport apart from some obscure Olympic competitions that 99% of fans don’t even remember exist in the 4 year gap between the Games.
Modern sport is nothing without spectators paying for the privilige. Least of all motorsport, the most expensive of them all. With not enough spectators no one would reap profits, there would be no sponsors no lucrative circuit contracts, TV deals, nothing. And no significant number of fans would pay to watch a race dull as dishwater just to appreciate the greatness of the manufacturer who won by 10 laps. There’s so much competition over our free time why would anyone waste their time on such a pitifully boring show?
Neither WEC, nor Formula 1 or any other series would survive nowadays with just the purists who are prepared to be bored to their core just to keep the competition pure. So the simple fact is that this COTD got it180 degrees backwards. It’s not the sports who got the fans educated on the “show”. It’s the fans who educated the sports that either you give us a decently entertaining show or we’re off to watch something more exciting and good luck with your impending bankruptcy.
James Coulee
31st May 2024, 9:00
I thought we already had WWE for the fans of simulated sports. :)
It’s a bit bold to put all F1 fans in that bag, though, I’m afraid: don’t mistake the part for the whole.
F1 is and always was a team sport that entertains (even with the many -and sometimes baffling- concessions made to the entertainment side of it in recent times).
Fans of BOP that would like to see a top single-seater formula with spec cars have IndyCar and Super Formula.
If your thesis was right, those championships would be more popular than F1.
S
31st May 2024, 11:17
People wheel this argument out a lot – but neither Indycar nor Super Formula have ever made any attempt to compete with F1’s market share, calendar length and locale reach.
F1, especially in its current form, relies totally on quantity and scale. F1 didn’t get as big as it is without leaving Europe – now to the point of spending more time outside of its home region than in it.
An Indycar or SF that used an F1-style calendar would quite likely be just as popular, if not more so – particularly with the younger audience.
Unfortunately, in reaching that scale, they’d also be subject to many of the catastrophic downsides that F1 suffers as a result. Too much money and politics involved by that point.
MichaelN
31st May 2024, 9:14
The COTD reminds me of the joke “where between 30% and 35% tax does it become left-wing”?
There is no difference in kind here. All of motorsport is regulated. Heavily so. The days where racing was about pioneering new technology are decades in the past. By those standards, F1 arguably peaked in the 1980s, and definitely ended in 1992 with the banning of the active suspension.
Why can’t Ferrari bring Michelin tyres to F1? Why can’t Mercedes bring updates for their engine? Why can’t Aston Martin have a test week at Silverstone? Why can’t McLaren use the F-duct they developed over a decade ago? F1 is like a high-tech variant of a colouring book. Sure some teams so slightly better, but it’s ultimately the regulators that make the big decisions.
Racing is also about far more than building the cars. If it wasn’t, the FIA could just input windtunnel numbers and give the prize to the best performer.
MichaelN
31st May 2024, 9:23
Plus the whole point of the LMH regulations was not to “spend millions making the best car”. LMP1 was so outlandishly expensive that nobody joined the class.
AlexS
2nd June 2024, 21:48
Makes no sense what you just wrote. You are comparing different things.
Electroball76
1st June 2024, 1:16
‘I only peed in F1 car once’ – Hamilton.
Rosberg was furious, but he could never prove who did it