Lando Norris out to prove nice guys don’t finish last in friendly rivalry with McLaren teammate Carlos Sainz

Exclusive interview: Young British driver enters his second season in F1 having emerged as a friendly face in the paddock who fans have warmed to enormously, but that doesn’t mean his ruthless edge is any less diminished than his rivals

The theory that nice guys finish last can apply to Formula One just as much as it does to love, if history is anything to go by. It takes a special kind of ruthless edge to become a Formula One world champion, something that some drivers are born with and others have to force themselves to learn, while few have won a title while playing second fiddle to their teammate.

Sometimes, being the bad boy both in F1 and with the ladies goes hand-in-hand, as James Hunt demonstrated, but for the majority it is about demonstrating the desire to win above all costs to become the fastest driver on the planet, even if that means burning a few bridges along the way.

For young McLaren star Lando Norris, that is a rather alien concept – the idea of burning bridges in the pursuit of greatness. The 20-year-old Bristolian is one of the new breed of drivers who make competing under arguably the highest pressure in sport look rather fun. Driving wheel-to-wheel, clashing wheels – and sometimes much more – and shunting each other off the track all seems to be done these days with a smile on the face. The thought of Lewis Hamilton passing Nico Rosberg, or Sebastian Vettel defying team orders to beat Mark Webber, hardly comes with the same image, does it?

In the modern age of Netflix series’ and round-the-clock television coverage, we see a lot more of the person behind the visor, which has revealed Norris to be a very likeable young man who is helping to breathe fresh life into the sport, giving it a healthy future alongside the likes of Max Verstappen, Charles Leclerc, George Russell and Alexander Albon. That has revealed a very friendly relationship between Norris and his McLaren teammate, Carlos Sainz, who is five years older than the driver he shares the garage with. However, there is an edgier side to the pair’s relationship that not even the cameras see.

“We get along and we have laughs and stuff, but we’re still competitive,” says Norris ahead of the new season. “We still know that we’re against each other and it’s not like we’re really friendly on track or whatever. We still want the best for ourselves and it’s each for their own, but at the same time we want the best for the team, we both want to be winning races and the only way of doing that is if the team have a better car, and by doing that it’s finishing higher in the constructors’ championship like last year, which we did.

“But it wasn’t all great, there were a lot of moments last year where we ... we didn’t fall out but we had moments where you just don’t get along anywhere near as well. You don’t get along but it doesn’t mean you can’t have fun or make a joke of anything, you can still do that and I think we’re still ourselves and still had fun, but at the same time there’s already been moments – and I’m sure there’s going to be many more this year and in the future – of moments where it gets heated and a bit more tension between us.

“But I think we know that’s something that’s going to arise, yet it’s not something you can prepare for, it’s just probably more normal than other teams.”

Sometimes a poor relationship can spread throughout a team and transform that competitive edge into a toxic environment. Think back to McLaren’s heyday and the bad blood that resided between Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost threatened to derail the team’s championship, not to mention drove the latter out of the team despite them boasting the strongest line-up F1 has ever seen. 20 years later the same would happen again now, when Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton managed to snatch world championship defeat from the jaws of victory because they were too busy fighting with each other. That line up now would be regarded a dream team, but back in 2007 it proved unworkable.

It’s with this in mind that McLaren chiefs will be pleased to hear that the rivalry between Norris and Sainz is strictly related to on-track matters.

“You go for an overtake and he pushes me a little bit wide, or vice versa,” says Norris. “It can be any driver, but of course I’d rather it was me doing the overtaking. It’s not so much the set-ups, we have similar comments and run our cars slightly differently, but have similar comments with what the problems are with the car, so it’s not like the car gets developed in one way rather than the other.”

Yet when prompted to think back to each one of his teammates, from the early days in karting to partnering Sergio Sette Camara at Carlin in last year’s F2 championship, Norris believes his personality helps to build that relationship to make life easier.

“I think it’s me to be honest, I wouldn’t say it’s him,” laughed Norris. “I think I’m just a nice guy. I’ve always got on with my teammates since karting, F4, Ginetta, F3, F2. Every teammate that I’ve had I’ve gotten on with.

“It makes it more enjoyable, it makes it much easier so it’s a win-win from my side. But I still make the decisions that I need to if I’ve got to look after my own benefit rather than my teammate’s. So I still make the choice I need to for my best result but as soon as I get out the car I can just have fun and be normal and not have to be like a lot of other drivers which seems a bit more boring and self-focussed.”

Norris and Sainz share a friendly relationship off the track (Reuters)

McLaren hope that in Norris and Sainz – the combined youngest partnership on the grid alongside Red Bull’s line-up of Verstappen and Albon – they have the ticket back to the big time, having not challenged for a race victory since 2012 and going seven long years without a podium until Sainz finished in third place in Brazil last November.

But if McLaren are able to put together a championship-contending car in the near future, the stakes will rise and with that comes the added strain on Norris’s relationship with Sainz. Suddenly, the 50-50 move that might be for sixth or seventh becomes a podium-deciding or race-winning move, meaning the margin for error gets ever smaller.

“If you’re going for race wins then it goes to a different level, and I think that’s when you normally see more of the relationships between teammates go wrong when they’re going for the title or race wins,” admits Norris. “You had Lewis and Fernando, Lewis and Rosberg, Vettel and Webber, there’s a lot of examples and it goes wrong when you’re going for race wins and the championship.

“You get it a lot more than, and still it happens when you’re not going for stuff like that, but it’s much less likely. Until we get to that point where we’re winning championships it’s not something to think about.”