Lando Norris has been rising in popularity among F1 fans, ever since his debut in 2019. The spotlight on the British prodigy has increased after his impressive performances for McLaren in the past few seasons. However, this has also brought mental pressure, like any other young driver may experience. There is added pressure on Norris, who is yet to win a Grand Prix. As a result, he is often subject to immense criticism on social media. The same thing has happened lately on Instagram through a hateful fan comment, but the McLaren star decided to ignore it and not say anything.
Norris often is self-critical whenever he does not do well in races. So one would expect the #4 driver to react annoyingly to any fan’s criticism. However, when a fan on Instagram commented and mocked his 0-win record, the Briton just liked the comment and didn’t say a single word.
The fan’s comment read, “Still 0 win, overrated.” Several fans on Twitter (now X) were observant enough to find out that Norris had liked this comment. Many other fans have reacted with posts on these screenshots, hailing the McLaren driver for being ice-cold and not getting flustered.
There is always a dichotomy in fans’ opinions about Norris. Some praise the British driver and consider him as championship-winning material. Meanwhile, some other fans often feel that he is overrated for not winning races despite having been in F1 for five seasons.
To be fair, Norris has had the chance to fight for race wins multiple times, especially in 2021. He was agonizingly close to winning the 2021 Russian GP in Sochi.
However, when the rain came in the closing stages of the race, Norris made a misjudgment of not pitting for intermediate tires. This cost him the race lead as he slid off the track on slick tires as though he was driving on ice.
Fans love Lando Norris for not losing his calm due to mocking comment
Oftentimes, fans troll Lando Norris for not being a race winner and bottling his opportunity in Sochi. While it was Norris’ mistake, he took it on the chin and admittedly was upset about it. Thus, whenever anyone brings up his lack of race wins, the 24-year-old does engage in some banter on social media.
That is why, this was a unique occasion when the #4 driver just ignored the mocking comment and did not say a single word in response. Many fans on X (formerly Twitter) liked this calm silent response from the Briton.
One fan wrote, “That’s the way to do it Hun”.
Another fan deemed it the classic social media war analogy by saying, “winning the i**** war”.
There is certainly a chance Norris may win a race in the 2024 season. With the kind of development McLaren has done in 2023 to recover as the second-fastest team, that duck may break soon for the Briton. And when that happens, as this fan said, it would be “iconic”.
Another fan found a couple more instances of Norris engaging and reacting to social media comments. One of them included a fan vote on the Best Overtake from the 2021 Italian GP. Norris won this vote against Max Verstappen by 54% to 46%.
On this, the McLaren driver jokingly posted, “Wow, my first f1 win.” Ironically, it was only two weeks later when Norris lost the rain-marred race in Sochi.
However, it is only a matter of when and not if Norris registers his maiden race win. The 2024 McLaren MCL38 can most likely enable the Briton to get that monkey off his back.
