(Motorsport-Total.com) – After World Champion Lando Norris already named his four favorite Formula 1 drivers a few days ago, the 26-year-old Briton now reveals in a video on social networks which people have significantly shaped his life so far as well as his career in motorsport.
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Unsurprisingly, Norris names his father Adam as one of the central figures of his career. “First and foremost is my father,” says the McLaren driver, who has been driving for the British racing team since 2019 and has therefore not driven for any other team in Formula 1.
“Even as a child, he loved racing. When he was an adult, he couldn’t really do it anymore. But he worked hard and gave both my brother and me the chance to get into racing. He fulfilled my dream.”
“I remember playing Gran Turismo on the PlayStation with my father when I was three or four years old. That’s where it all started,” Norris looks back on his childhood, in which not only his father Adam played a decisive role.
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“Valentino Rossi was my big role model as a child,” adds the Formula 1 World Champion, who has a strong passion for motorcycle racing. “I was more interested in motorcycles than cars at a young age. So, Valentino Rossi.”
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“And then the next two, quite simply: Zak Brown,” Norris continues about the most important people in his career so far. “I’ve been working with Zak Brown for many years. I think you rarely find someone who works as much as Zak Brown.”
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“If you spend a day with him, you can talk to him for five minutes at most because he spends the rest of the time in phone calls, meetings, emails, texts, and so on. Nowadays, I’m lucky if I even get to play golf with Zak Brown at all.”
Andrea Stella “always opens your eyes”
“But he is not only a pleasant companion, neither on the golf course nor anywhere else, but also a truly impressive and very successful personality in business,” Norris finds. “So that would be one. And the last one, to stay within the team, is Andrea Stella, with whom I have been working since I joined McLaren.”
“He came from Ferrari many years ago,” the driver Lando Norris recalls the successful career of the current McLaren team principal. “You really have to get to know Andrea Stella, talk to him personally and understand him as a person to grasp what he can achieve.”
“I think he has proven that from a McLaren perspective with his performance and his contribution to McLaren in recent years, but especially in the last two or three years. He is someone who repeatedly opens your eyes to things you would never have thought of, who gives you new food for thought and makes you rethink many things.”
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