Mental Health Awareness: Lando Norris is an Advocate for the Conversation

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May is Mental Health Awareness month, a topic that has been gaining awareness in the professional sports community over the past few years. One professional athlete who has been extremely open about his mental health is Lando Norris.

Lando Norris, a Formula 1 (F1) driver, race winner, and contender for the 2025 Driver’s World Championship. With such titles, comes high expectations from those around him, particularly from his team, fans, and himself.

While Norris is a contender for the 2025 Driver’s Championship Trophy, McLaren and Norris only started fighting for the trophy during the 2024 season. Prior to that, Norris found himself climbing a list no driver wants to climb; the most races driven without a win. 

Norris secured his first race win at the 2024 Miami Grand Prix, stopping the count, and officially tied in eighth, at 110 races driven before winning a Grand Prix. This win not only ended the count, it also ended the cruel nickname given to him: “Lando No-Wins.”

Despite there being a fight for the Driver’s Championship Trophy between Norris and Max Verstappen, McLaren had the Constructors’ Championship Trophy pretty much won in 2024, making this the first time since 1998, they have won this trophy. 

With the Constructors battle secured, eyes were on Norris and Verstappen and the Driver’s Championship. Norris ultimately fell short, and people were not shy to let him know their thoughts on the matter, especially the negative ones.

The latest season of Netflix’s documentary series Drive to Survive (DTS) covers Norris’ fight with Verstappen, including the 2024 Brazilian Grand Prix which was a crucial race for Norris to bridge the gap between him and Verstappen in the Driver’s Championship. He had pole position and Verstappen was starting down in seventeenth. Verstappen won this race, while Norris fell to sixth. 

When discussing this on season seven of DTS, Norris commented; “I was pretty bad. I didn’t sleep. Twenty-six hours I went straight.” Norris is very open about his mental health and the things that affect it.  Confirming his lack of sleep was from being in his own head and the pressure he has applied to himself.

Still in season seven of DTS, Norris admits, “my weakness is caring too much about what people say or think or feel. And then I kind of get into this spiral, which has been my problem with making progress in my career. I just gotta focus on my own driving, and that’s all I can control.” 

The hate towards Norris started to ramp up when he started challenging Verstappen, clearly affecting him both on and off the track. Norris is hard enough on himself and rather than show support for Norris and his candidness, he has faced extra scrutiny and been deemed “whiny” and lacking the “killer instinct” of a champion.

Now in the 2025 season, Norris is the senior driver over Piastri. With a winning car heading into the season, he faced extra attention. He started off at Melbourne with a win, taking first in the Driver’s Championship. However, this was his last win before he won Monaco 2025. 

Of the six races between Melbourne and Monaco, Verstappen won two of the races and Norris’ teammate Oscar Piastri won four of them, effectively taking the championship lead off of Norris. 

With people commenting on his performance left and right, it can be hard for Norris to drown out the noise. Especially, when he is doing well and people are still wishing him ill and praying for his downfall. This can be seen in the comment sections of many social media posts and even in the F1 channel on Instagram where if they share anything positive about Norris, many “fans” will spam the reactions with angry emojis.

Trying to regain his focus, Norris has said, “I just put too much pressure on myself because I want to do well, like I want to do so well. I want to be a pole, I want to win, I want to be perfect, and I think I need to accept a little bit more that I’m not going to be perfect, and I’m making mistakes because I’m trying to be perfect, rather than the other way around.” 

Some things are out of Norris’ control, like fan hate, but Norris has kept his head down, taking some weight off of himself, and getting back on the right track to get the championship lead back.

Even before Norris was driving in a winning car, he struggled with his mental health. Norris made his debut in F1 in 2019 at the age of 19, even back then, he faced mental health challenges. “...I did suffer a lot in the beginning of the season just with a bit of everything - I don’t know what exactly but just everything combined, I struggled mentally because of that,” said Norris to Greg Stuart in 2020. 

As McLaren has positively evolved, Norris has gained teammates who further challenge him, and as the F1 market has started expanding into North America, more pressure has been put on him, and he has been very open in admitting to feeling this demand and its mental effects.

Norris has faced a lot of criticism, especially from himself, but he has also received high praise. Some of this praise has come from Red Bull Team Principal, Christian Horner, who has looked at Norris for Red Bull. However, while he has had positive things to say, he has also looked at how open Norris is with his mental health and considered whether it is a weakness rather than a strength.

Season seven of DTS looked at Norris in a contender's light, challenging the four-time world champion, Verstappen. Horner admits, “Their best chance of challenging Max is with Lando. But does Lando have the mental strength to go up against Max?” 

Horner viewing Norris’ struggles as a weakness is shown to viewers of DTS giving those who see this as Norris coming up with excuses more ammunition. Also encouraging the notion that he does not have the “killer instinct.”

While Horner views Norris’ openness about his mental health as a weakness, he is not the only one. Netflix has also shaped Norris to be weaker because of his mental health. 

Also in season seven of DTS there is a scene where Charles Leclerc says, “And you can already see who has a lot of confidence, who maybe has a little less confidence.” As Leclerc is saying the second half of the sentence, Netflix inserts a clip of Lando Norris. Acts such as this have provided fuel to people who believe attacking Norris is okay, rather than supporting him and his discussions around the important topic of mental health.

Norris has faced scrutiny for being open about his mental health everywhere, from online to the paddock, but he has a strong family supporting him and has learned ways to cope with these struggles. One of the main actions he has taken recently is time off of social media. 

“It’s just not something I enjoy. I don’t need to. It’s my life. I can do what I like” says Norris, adding on “I still use my phone and I’m still texting my friends and all these things. I just see social media more, from my perspective, as a waste of my time and my energy and I just don’t need it.”

Norris faces enough pestering without the voices and opinions about him on social media. Cutting them out is a good way to help keep his mental health intact. Especially, with the championship battle going on. Norris is not only working hard as a pilot, he is also working very hard in destigmatizing the negative notions around mental health, specifically in professional athletes and men.

The Barcelona Grand Prix is Sunday, June 1, 2025, and coming off a win in the streets of Monaco, this may act as the boost of confidence Norris needed to fight to take the championship lead back from Piastri.