What a Formula E Driver Has to Say About Lando Norris
McLaren Formula E driver Sam Bird has offered one of the strongest endorsements yet of Lando Norris’s raw speed. Fresh from his final outing with McLaren’s FE team, Bird said on a BBC podcast that Norris has naturally high pace and keeps sharpening it with serious work. He called Norris’s race speed “crazy,” the kind that puts pressure on everyone else, even on difficult days. Coming from a veteran who has raced and won in top single-seater and electric series, that praise carries weight. Bird’s message is simple: what we’re watching with Norris is rare, and it is not an accident.
Bird’s first point is talent, but his second is habit. He says Norris has been grinding on a home simulator for years, dating all the way back to his karting days. That constant loop of practice, laps, feedback, and correction has trained his hands and eyes to react fast and smoothly under stress. Bird mentions rFactor Pro as part of Norris’s toolkit, a professional simulator environment that rewards repeatable precision. According to Bird, those hours build muscle memory that shows each Sunday: consistent lap times, confident tyre phase-ins, and clean execution when the car and track are changing by the minute.
There is also the way Norris climbed the ladder. Bird points out that while Norris raced in F3, he was already testing F2 machinery, and while he was in F2, he was sampling F1 cars. That early exposure to faster grip, heavier braking, and complex run plans gave him a head start in reading car behavior. Along the way, Norris worked with top driver coaches who helped him turn raw pace into structured performance. By the time he reached Formula 1 full-time, he had a mental “library” of references that let him adapt across compounds, fuel loads, and conditions more quickly than most.
Bird’s focus, though, is the race pace, not just a single qualifying lap. He says Norris’s strength is how he blends speed with tyre care and traffic management. That means pushing hard enough to build gaps, but gently enough to keep the tyres alive for the next phase. It means knowing when to attack, when to cover, and how to time undercuts and overcuts with the team. McLaren’s engineers can lean on that predictability because Norris tends to hit the same braking points and minimum speeds every time once he locks into a stint rhythm. Bird’s view is that this repeatability is what separates “fast” from “unmatchable” on race days.
Finally, Bird underlines that Norris’s ceiling is still rising. The simulator work has not stopped; the feedback loops have only grown tighter as McLaren’s tools have improved. He still studies with specialists, looks for micro-gains in entry stability and traction, and spends time translating simulation cues into real-world feel. That culture of constant improvement, combined with years of early, high-level testing, is why Bird thinks very few can truly match Norris over a race distance. In other words, the talent is real, but the craft behind it is just as real, and that is why rivals keep struggling to keep up.
In the end, Bird’s verdict lands with clarity: Lando Norris is fast by nature, and faster by design. The practice hours, professional-grade sim work, early testing across series, and the coaching all built a driver who can run a relentless, repeatable pace. That is why his Sundays look so commanding even when the field is tight and the pressure is high. For fans, it is a reminder that great race craft is both a gift and a grind. For the grid, it is a warning that Norris’s best might still be ahead of him.
