Lando Norris speaks openly about his most difficult moments in motorsport – The world champion suffered from self-doubt for years on his way to the top
Motorsport can be a real shark tank, which is why self-confidence is a crucial factor. Lando Norris has confessed that he would advise his younger self to believe in himself more. The Brit admitted that feelings of self-doubt accompanied him throughout his rise to Formula 1—even though he celebrated numerous successes along the way.
At the 2026 Autosport Awards, the world champion was asked what advice he would give himself if he could return to the night he won the prestigious Autosport BRDC Award – a moment that played a key role in advancing his career at McLaren.
“Honestly, the most important thing would probably be to believe in myself a little more,” said Norris. “I’ve actually always been the exact opposite. I was never someone who jumped out of bed in the morning and thought, ‘Today is going to be my day, I’m going to achieve everything’. That’s just not who I was. That’s not how I grew up.”
Expectation management as a protective shield
However, this emotional restraint also allowed him to control his expectations and the inevitably growing pressure on his shoulders.
“There are pros and cons,” he explains. “I don’t have any expectations. I don’t expect to go out and win every race, which is a good thing. But I still set high standards for myself. I’ve always had high expectations of my own performance.“
”I never thought it was possible,“ he continues. ”Even at a young age, I always looked up to the next higher category and thought, ‘
Will I be able to beat these bigger, older, and more experienced guys?’ Especially when I was very young,“ he adds with a laugh.
Norris worked his way up step by step.
”Every year I thought, ‘Oh, I’ve done it.
I could win, I moved up to the next category and won again. That continued until Formula 2 – where George [Russell] beat me – and then it was, ‘Okay, can I do the same in Formula 1?’”
After making his debut for McLaren in 2019, it was a long road to the top for the Brit. “It took long enough, but in the end I did it,” he laughs.
Now he is world champion and looks back on his career with a new perspective: “If I could go back and tell little Lando one thing, it would be to just have a little more confidence.”
