Autosport Top 50 of 2024: #3 Lando Norris

Undoubtedly, his best Formula 1 season to date – with the statistics proving so. In 2024, Lando Norris finished as championship runner-up (his previous best finishing position was sixth in 2021 and 2023), he took four wins in breaking his GP victory duck (along with a sprint win too) and took his F1 career pole tally to near double figures when he’d had just one coming in.

But it can’t be forgotten how his season had narrative nuance along with the cold numbers.

In the early part of the year, Norris still had to shake the no-wins monkey (and cowardly social media moniker) from his reputation.

But he did this with aplomb when elevated into a winning position in the Miami race – the perfect place for a party reveller to celebrate his breakthrough. And he went on to score very fine wins at Zandvoort and Abu Dhabi, and in Singapore too.

When in an F1 title battle for the first time, he faced many questions about his temperament behind the wheel – regarding starts (Budapest and Spa following his Shanghai sprint start struggle), mistakes at key moments and the challenge of racing Max Verstappen at full-tilt. To his credit, he addressed much of this very well.

On starts, when the pressure was really on for McLaren in Abu Dhabi, he utterly nailed it. And in battle, he learned from that bruising Austin experience to critically get fractionally in front of Verstappen a week later in Mexico and in doing so exposed his rival’s cynical tactics to stewards’ judgements and penalties.

Norris clinched his first four grand prix victories, but failed to get the better of Verstappen despite having a quicker car for much of the season

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

But the error count overall can’t be ignored – even if McLaren played a part in some of this. And, ultimately, this is why he’s slipped down a place in our F1 driver ranking versus 2023.

PLUS: Ranking the top 10 Formula 1 drivers of 2024

Better qualifying results in Bahrain, Miami and Brazil (sprints) went begging. There were offs racing Carlos Sainz and George Russell, plus how he let Verstappen back ahead in the Austria sprint. Then there were those Singapore wallstrike moments, the Qatar yellow flags gaffe and more.

To end on a high note – it’s worth recalling just how well Norris did in qualifying against a hard-charging team-mate in Oscar Piastri. Norris not only won their head-to-head 24-6 (across all qualifying sessions), but he held a significant 0.313s average pace difference too.

Norris made an almighty step up in 2024. F1 can’t wait to see what he’ll do with win-worthy machinery from the off next time.

Lando Norris reveals his natural F1 qualifying lap habits

Want to know how F1 qualifying naturally comes to Norris and why he sometimes makes tiny mistakes right at the limit? Check out this chat he had with Autosport at the Spanish GP this year.

AS: What does the data show you about how you’re getting on in qualifying this year?

LN: I just want to attack more and simply it’s the wrong thing to do. Always when we get to quali, I want to brake later and just attack! And it’s the complete wrong thing to do. But that’s my normal way of doing it and it’s the incorrect way of doing it.

A mindset switch has helped Norris unlock his qualifying prowess

Photo by: Steven Tee / Motorsport Images

In some ways, it’s very good. You get to quali and like that little bit more comes out. Which I think has proven to be a very good thing so many times. But then there’s also those times when it’s like, ‘don’t do it’. And it’s hard to go sometimes, ‘I need to drive slower now to go quicker’. It’s not an easy thing to do.

Even the good qualifyings. It can be so small, that I push like a few bar more of the brake pressure and it’s a small margins kind of thing. But that little bit more and it’s the wrong thing to do. Instead of improving my Q3 lap by 0.1s altogether, I go 0.1s slower because I brake two bar more in a few corners and I’ve put the car and tyres under a bit more stress.

AS: Is there specific training that can help with this?

LN: With certain things, yes. It’s just very difficult to tackle. Because it’s such a feeling-based thing, it’s mental-based thing. Of, ‘I brake when I feel like I wanna brake’. I don’t really use brake markers. Ever. I just brake when I feel is right. And so, when I get to quali, I have that feeling of just needing to brake later, but I rarely, hardly ever use brake markers. So, then my feelings generally go in the wrong directions.

It’s a little bit of that, but it’s simple and at the same time very complicated in trying to turn something that’s such a subconscious ability into trying to understand it in a conscious sense and shift that in a different direction. Because that’s how I’ve always been my whole life. And consciously affecting that and choosing where to place that level of aggression is not easy to do.