Today, Lando Norris is arguably one of the most popular F1 drivers in the world and his fame knew no bounds even in Ferrari’s backyard. The British driver who represents Ferrari’s rival team, McLaren, received immense support at Monza during the recently concluded Italian Grand Prix. Now, Norris, after being shocked at the amount of support he received, jokingly called the supporters color blind, as per F1TV.
Norris’ popularity has soared since making his debut back in 2019. His personality and on-track performances have earned him a tremendous fan following. Hence, despite competing in Ferrari’s home race, there was no shortage of support for the 23-year-old.
LN4. #ItalianGP 🇮🇹 pic.twitter.com/cQ5tJdnJvp
— McLaren (@McLarenF1) September 3, 2023
However, the Briton never expected so much support at Monza, where the Tifosi is particularly vocal about their support for Ferrari, the home team. Admittedly, the support for the young Brit was very overwhelming.
Norris on the support he receives and the “color-blind” joke
After the 2023 Italian GP, Norris joined Will Buxton and Luca Filippi of F1TV where he spoke about his race at the Autodromo Nazionale Monza. During the chat, Filippi asked the McLaren driver about the tremendous support he received this time around in Italy.
Answering this, the McLaren star said, “The fans here are actually… I’m surprised [to see] how many fans supported me here just because I’m not in Red. You know on the driver’s parade, maybe some of them are color blind.”
Classic cars for the drivers’ parade, its a look! 😍#ItalianGP 🇮🇹 pic.twitter.com/DkC4PCm3dT
— McLaren (@McLarenF1) September 3, 2023
Despite all the support that Lando Norris got at Monza, he had a frustrating race. However, he can be happy with the fact that he made it to the top ten at least, unlike his teammate Oscar Piastri. Piastri’s race got jeopardized after a collision with Lewis Hamilton.
Lando Norris and McLaren had a tough race at Monza
McLaren wanted both Norris and Piastri to compete towards the front of the grid. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen for the Woking-based squad. Keeping aside Piastri, Norris was mostly stuck behind the Williams of Alex Albon.
As Albon had better straight-line speed than Norris, the former defended his position well. The race could’ve been even worse if McLaren higher-ups didn’t think about getting an upgrade at Monza. Without it, the British driver revealed that the Papayas would have been out of the points for sure.
