Two Young British Drivers are currently riding sky high in F1 with both drivers fighting at the front of the grid for that all important World Driver Championship.
Lando Norris – currently second in this year’s standings
Lando Norris is a McLaren driver who was born in 1999. He has finished runner-up in 2024 season and has won five grand prix in seven seasons.
Lando was born in Bristol and raised locally in Glastonbury by his English father and Belgian mother.
The young Brit started off racing at the age of seven and by the age of 14 he had already become a world karting champion.
The F1 superstar was helped significantly by his father Adam Norris, a wealthy businessman, who provided all the necessary resources to help his progress to where he is today.
Despite being one of the most talented F1 drivers, Lando Norris has had some issues away from the circuit, when entering the F1 in 2019, he opened up about his mental struggles including anxiety and depression.
This was predominantly down to the immense pressure of securing a seat in F1, especially in his rookie season, where Lando had worked so hard to get to.
Since joining McLaren, Norris has managed to reach out to the team about his problems with mental health and the McLaren team has since partnered up with Mind, which has played a crucial role in Lando’s recovery and many others.
At 25-years-old, Lando continues to push to become an F1 champion and be the first Brit since Lewis Hamilton to win a title.
George Russell – currently fourth in this year’s drivers standings
Moving onto the other young exciting Brit in George Russell who currently drives for Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 team.
Russell was born in King’s Lynn in 1988 and continued to be raised there. Since becoming a professional F1 driver, Russell has won three grand prix and 19 podiums in seven seasons.
The upcoming Brit started competitive karting age seven and quickly made a name for himself, managing to achieve back-to-back at the junior direct drive karting championships in 2011 and 2012.
With his impressive performances, he got a chance at Formulae and won the championship in 2014.
His rise to the top continued after winning the GDP3 championship in 2017 and F2 in 2018 with ART. Becoming just the fifth driver to win the F2 championship in their rookie season and just the second driver to win both titles in their rookie seasons.
Throughout his Karting career George Russell always adopted 63 as his designated driving number and this is due to his brother using it in his early Karting days and since then George has adopted it since.
After this, Russell was finally given the chance in F1 and signed for Williams in 2019 and made his debut at the Australian Grand Prix.
In 2020, he subsituted into the Mercedes F1 team replacing Lewis Hamilton who was ill, but was cruelly taken away from a win with a team error and a puncture for leading the majority of the race.
After three years with Williams, Russell departed to Mercedes where he has not hit the heights he would’ve expected. He finished fourth in his first full season with Mercedes despite only one win which came in Brazil.
As of 2025, Russell is the only driver to have a top five finish in every session, this includes Practice One/Two/Three, Qualifying and the Race itself.
(Featured image credit: Creative Commons)
