Following his 2025 Formula 1 championship win, Lando Norris opened up about the sacrifices his family made that allowed him to rise through the ranks, culminating in his success with McLaren.
After a season-long duel with team-mate Oscar Piastri and eventually sparring with Red Bull’s Max Verstappen, Norris finally converted his nine years with McLaren into a title. But for his family, this had come after a lifetime of personal sacrifices.
Asked about the comments made by his mother in a BBC interview following his win at the Abu Dhabi race, the Briton opened up about how his family was eventually shaped by the demands of a young racing driver.
“We’re still as a family. You want to be together. You want to spend time together. I know that’s something we’ve not really done a lot of since I started when I was like seven, eight years old,” Norris told BBC.
“My dad was taking me everywhere. I spent a lot more time with my dad than I did with my mum. My mum was at home looking after my sisters. So for that whole journey, for all that time away, all the travel, you know, I see my mum 20 days a year, maybe something like that, which is not a lot.”
After years on the road spread over karting and single-seater racing, Norris finally made it into F1 – something that made it all worth it.
Lando Norris, McLaren
“My mum wished she saw me a lot more,” he continued. “But for all of those times, it already felt worth it when I got to Formula 1 and I won a race in Formula 1. Certainly winning and having the achievement we did yesterday made everything feel more worth it, all those times away.
“I think one thing that everyone wants to do is make their parents proud. So the fact I got to do that yesterday, I hope that makes them even more proud,” he said.
It wasn’t just his parents who made the sacrifices, his three siblings also had to give up their time with the 26-year-old.
“The sacrifice is also from them,” he explained. “I don’t feel like I’ve been maybe the older brother that my sisters would have wanted or would have loved quite as much. I’ve not been able to see them grow up as much.
“Everyone has different sacrifices along the way in order to achieve their dreams. I certainly feel like it was all worth it because I still get to have them all there at the end of it, which was yesterday,” he said.
“We get to celebrate it all together, because my dream was their dream and their dream was my dream – all of it together. So it was our win.”
With a regulation overhaul in 2026, Norris will be keen to maintain the momentum he found this year to put him in good stead for what will be a substantially different year.