- Norris won the first race of the season but is yet to taste victory since then
- He has fallen 16 points behind team-mate Piastri in the Drivers’ Championship
- The Briton has now come off social media in a bid to get his season back on track
Lando Norris’s sport psychology lesson No 134, entitled: Switch off your phone and save your sanity.
Sitting in the McLaren hospitality area, the Briton’s eyes are fixed on a screen showing the PGA Championship. His arms are crossed as Rory McIlroy misses a 10-footer for par. A sigh.
Golf, both playing it and watching it, is a sanctuary for Norris away from his high-profile Formula One career that has recently involved him losing his lead in the drivers’ standings to team-mate Oscar Piastri.
Having won the opening race in Melbourne, Norris is now 16 points back. Piastri, in contrast, has won four out of the last five and three in succession.
That reversal takes a toll on your confidence, questions are asked, and comments are aired.
Norris’s response? ‘I’ve not been on social media for a few weeks now,’ he says.
Lando Norris has come off social media in a bit to help get his world title bid back on track
Norris won the first race of the season but has fallen behind team-mate Oscar Piastri (right) in the standings
Australian Piastri has also edged Norris in practice for this weekend’s Grand Prix in Imola
‘It’s just not something I enjoy. I don’t need to. It’s my life. I can do what I like.
‘I enjoy not going on my phone as much as I used to. I mean, I still use my phone and text my friends.
‘But social media is a waste of my time and energy. I don’t need that, don’t want it.
‘I don’t find it interesting. I wouldn’t say I feel better. I just feel like I have got more time to do things that I want to do.
‘I want to spend time with my friends and go and play golf and train and do things that are productive.’
Actually, his Instagram account was updated last Friday. But, in danger of letting light in on the magic, one of his apparatchiks may have affected that, not the 25-year-old Bristolian who wants to kickstart his revival in Imola this weekend.
His car is well-equipped to help him in this endeavour. But in first practice, Piastri edged Norris by 0.032sec. In the second, by 0.025sec.
Sunday’s Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix is Lewis Hamilton’s first race for Ferrari in front of the red-shirted fans. The attention is both an inspiration and an intrusion.
Norris said he wants ‘to spend time with my friends and go and play golf and train and do things that are productive’
Sunday’s race, meanwhile, is Lewis Hamilton’s first for Ferrari in front of the red-shirted fans
A screen protected Hamilton as he made his way from the team’s hospitality area to the garage yesterday. His team-mate Charles Leclerc wandered freely, signing autographs on his merry way.
Like Norris, the seven-time world champion has also taken evasive measures online. He has 39.5million Instagram followers (to Norris’s 9.9m), yet he has unfollowed everyone and everything since the last race in Miami, where he finished a gut-punching eighth. He has dropped Ferrari, Leclerc and even his poorly bulldog Roscoe.
Are the sackings a statement on his frame of mind? The relevant history lies in the fact he last wiped his followers after the bone-deep despair of losing the title to Max Verstappen in Abu Dhabi five seasons ago.
Ferrari will need a generous slice of luck here if they are to deliver their maiden win of 2025, given that Leclerc was only sixth fastest in practice and Hamilton 11th.
Instagram, it seems, is not their most pressing concern.
