During the 2024 F1 season, more than two thousand fans voted for their favourite driver. One might have expected Lewis Hamilton to come out on top in the poll, but he was only fifth.
Hamilton is the most successful racer in the sport’s history and surely the best-known driver ever. But dominance is divisive.
Indeed, only nine percent of the fans surveyed were Hamilton supporters. That put him a fraction below former McLaren teammate Fernando Alonso (10%), a two-time world champion in his own right, and 2023 debutant Oscar Piastri.
Second place on the list of F1’s most popular drivers went to Charles Leclerc (11%), now Hamilton’s teammate at Ferrari. Leclerc is an eight-time Grand Prix winner, but he’s yet to mount a sustained title challenge.
| RANK | DRIVER | VOTE SHARE |
| 1 | Lando Norris | 15% |
| 2 | Charles Leclerc | 11% |
| =3 | Oscar Piastri | 10% |
| =3 | Fernando Alonso | 10% |
| =5 | Lewis Hamilton | 9% |
| =5 | Carlos Sainz | 9% |
| 7 | Max Verstappen | 8% |
| 8 | Alex Albon | 7% |
As the table above shows, Lando Norris was comfortably first on 15%. Along with George Russell and Max Verstappen, he and Leclerc front the new generation of world-class drivers, taking over from Hamilton, Alonso and Sebastian Vettel.
Lando Norris is no longer ‘joking’ with fellow F1 drivers and media members
According to Formula 1 paddock insider and journalist Albert Fabrega, Norris is entering a familiar cycle. He’s openly ‘self-destructive’ amid a poor run of form at McLaren.
Norris led the championship for the first four races, but a series of mistakes in qualifying, culminating in a crash in Saudi Arabia last weekend, have opened the door for Piastri to take over.
Part of the reason the Englishman topped the leaderboard above is that he was ‘always laughing’, whether that was with his fellow drivers or members of the media. But now he looks miserable.
The 25-year-old has defended his emotionally-charged interview answers, suggesting his brutal honesty has made him successful. But David Coulthard says Norris is boosting his competitors inadvertently.
“How do I see him psychologically?” Fabrega said on the After Lap podcast. “I see him entering those cycles that we’ve seen with Norris on several occasions. He’s self-destructive with himself, which I don’t think is bad, but [it’s better] behind closed doors.
“He needs the support of someone who can get him out of that loop of ‘I don’t have enough talent’. Norris was a guy who was always laughing with the drivers and the journalists, always smiling. That Norris is over.”
Ralf Schumacher explains why top teams will snub Lando Norris if he leaves McLaren
Former Red Bull driver Mark Webber deliberately gave ‘nothing’ to the press during his career. He felt it was the safest option.
Webber is now Piastri’s manager, and perhaps Norris would be wise to take the same approach. He’s only feeding the narrative that he can’t deal with the pressure of a title fight.
Ralf Schumacher says McLaren’s rivals will be reluctant to sign Norris, should he ever leave, unless he becomes more resilient. He’s under contract with the Woking outfit until the end of 2028, with an option for 2029.
There are still 19 races to go, and the gap is only 10 points. Come the end of the season, the past four races may be viewed simply as a blip, but consistency could be decisive.
