MELBOURNE, Australia — Formula 1’s world champion Lando Norris said he would be “embarrassed” enough to quit the sport if he did not feel fully motivated to defend his title this year.
Norris won his first championship last season, and the first for a McLaren driver since Lewis Hamilton in 2008.
The Englishman has faced a few questions about whether he is as motivated to defend the title as he was to win it in the first place.
Speaking ahead of the first race of his defence, Sunday’s Australian Grand Prix, he was emphatic.
“Yeah, I’ve probably done the most training and things during the course of the off-season than I’ve ever done,” Norris said.
“So it’s certainly not the case that I was relaxing more or partying more or whatever it might have been. It was quite the opposite, in fact. No, I’m still just as hungry.
“I think it made me want it more, in a way, because you get that feeling the same as when you have one win, you’re like, you want another one in a race. It was the same feeling as a championship, that one is amazing, but then you definitely want to achieve two.
“I don’t know, at the minute I still find it impossible to ever want to go out on track and not want to do everything I can to try and win. I’d feel embarrassed if that wasn’t to be the case. So, no, when that time comes, I’ll retire and I’ll leave Formula 1. But until then, I’ll always do everything I can to win, and certainly winning the championship last year made me want to achieve that even more this year.”
F1 drivers usually race with a number they choose at the beginning of their careers, but Norris has opted to race with number one as the reigning champion.
Previous champion Max Verstappen did the same at Red Bull, although Hamilton famously kept the number 44 for all the years he was defending champion at Mercedes, although he did so as defending champion for McLaren in 2009.
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Asked why he opted to take it, Norris said: “It’s an opportunity I wouldn’t want to miss to see the number one on my car. But like I’ve said many times, not just for myself, but for my team. I’ve been with McLaren for many years.
“And they’ve not had a number one on the car for a very, very long time. So for my own opportunity to have the helmet and look back on it in 20 years time and see that I had a number one on my helmet would be amazing. But also for the guys and girls, the mechanics, the team working on the car, the fact that they get to also work on a car that has a number one is very special for them too.
“So, yeah, it’s a small personal decision, but a bigger team feeling than I get.”
Norris would not be drawn on who he thinks are the biggest threat to the new number one mark on the front of his car.
When asked who he thinks is the favourite, he went with the bookies favourite and the two teams analysts unanimously agree are 10th and 11th in the pecking order going into Sunday’s race.
“George [Russell] and probably Aston [Martin],” Norris laughed. “Maybe Cadillac.”
