Lando Norris told by F1 rival he’s doing something ‘crazy’ behind the scenes at McLaren this season

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McLaren driver Lando Norris might be the hardest-working driver away from the track in Formula 1 right now.

It’s well known that McLaren CEO Zak Brown has done an incredible job building up the team’s reputation over the past few years.

Team principal Andrea Stella deserves immense credit for turning McLaren into constructors’ championship winners after being at the back of the grid at the start of the 2023 campaign.

However, it’s also very noticeable that Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri drive the two cars emblazoned with the most sponsors compared to the rest of the Formula 1 grid.

Brown has been described as being better than his counterparts in Formula 1 when it comes to the business aspect of leading a team.

This has a knock-on effect on the drivers, though, and Sauber rookie Gabriel Bortoleto has admitted that he finds the work Norris does for McLaren behind the scenes is ‘crazy’.

READ MORE: McLaren driver Lando Norris’ life outside F1 from parents to celebration

Lando Norris is doing ‘crazy’ work behind the scenes at McLaren, says Gabriel Bortoleto

Bortoleto was told on the Beyond The Grid Podcast that before him, Norris had said that driving was the easy part of racing in Formula 1, and he responded: “Look, it depends.

“I know that McLaren they do a lot of media, and I also told Lando this many times.

“Look, hats off to you guys because sometimes I’m with Lando and he’s like, oh, tomorrow I’m flying to the UK to do this and that, and then I need to fly to the US. And I’m like, man, that’s crazy.

“They have so many sponsors and things to do. Luckily, with us, we have a lot of sponsors, but we have a different way of doing things.

“And yeah, I don’t have the same, let’s say, still a very busy one because the time I’m not with the sponsors, I’m probably in the sim with the team or doing other things with the team. So it’s just different timings.

“But yeah, I would say driving is not the easy bit. This I can guarantee you. It’s very tough to extract 100% of these cars, but definitely, there are a lot of things that can affect your driving if you don’t focus and if you don’t save your energy.”

READ MORE: Who is 2025 Sauber driver Gabriel Bortoleto? Everything you need to know

Jacques Villeneuve tells Lando Norris the F1 title mistake he made at the Italian Grand Prix

McLaren don’t have a lead driver within their team, so there should theoretically be no additional pressure on Norris to do marketing events for the team ahead of Oscar Piastri.

In fact, the events that took place at Monza only highlight how fair McLaren are trying to make the fight for the drivers’ championship, as Piastri was told to hand second place back to Norris after a slow pit stop.

Piastri has a 31-point lead over Norris with eight races to go, and McLaren will be wary of organising too many media events for both drivers that could distract them from their ultimate goal this season.

Jacques Villeneuve has warned Norris he did something at Monza that a driver should never do in a title battle, but he still came away from the weekend with a better points tally than Piastri.

McLaren are saying ‘off record’ that Piastri and Norris will be allowed to race until the end of the season, which makes sense given the constructors’ championship will be wrapped up very soon.

If Norris is doing a ‘crazy’ amount of marketing work for McLaren now, that will only increase even further if he ends the season as a Formula 1 world champion.