Lando Norris opens up on his mental battles over the course of his short F1 career as he adds that speaking with Mind and McLaren has helped him a lot.
Attending the ITV Morning Show, McLaren’s Norris opened up about various topics but most importantly his mental side being in a grueling sport like F1. It is not the first time for the British driver to speak on the matter, but he added more to what has happened with him.
Norris spoke on the expectations on his shoulder coming in F1 at the age of 19-years and the worries of blowing away his chances while racing for a team like McLaren. “I guess people, from when they just watch TV, don’t realise many things that a driver goes through,” he said.
“And it’s a bit of shame, but there are more programmes now where you get to see what the driver is like behind the scenes, and the amount of pressure and stress that they have to cope with. Especially at my age, coming into Formula 1 at 19, there’s a lot of eyes on you. So, dealing with all these kinds of things, took its toll on me,” summed up Norris.
He admitted to being depressed at times thinking about his future and if he can remain at F1 for long. The social media side of the sport did hurt him too – one reason why he stopped looking at it and left it on his team to post for him.
“It was feeling like I don’t know what’s next?” said Norris. “If this goes wrong, if I don’t go out in the next session and perform, what’s going to happen? What’s the outcome of all of this? Am I going to be in Formula 1 next year, if I’m not? What am I going to do because I’m not really good at many other things in life?
“So, just all of that, and then just feeling depressed a lot of the time that if I have a bad weekend, I just think I’m not good enough and things like that. When they start adding up over the season, and then the social media side of it all, that can just really start to hurt you,” he added, while noting that speaking with people at Mind and also McLaren has helped him immensely to cope with his mental side.
“We partner with Mind, which have helped me massively, and also helped many other people in McLaren, but also just in the world in general,” said Norris. “So speaking to McLaren, speaking to the people that are around me and my friends that I trust, and, also Mind, I’m in a much better place now. I’m much happier and I can enjoy everything I do.”
Here’s Lando Norris, Daniel Ricciardo and Andreas Seidl on Sochi