As the title pressure ramps up, Lando Norris has revealed that he has quit social media.
The McLaren driver had made the decision before another qualifying session in which he admitted to being “not good enough”, and which saw advice pour in from hundreds of thousands of armchair experts around the planet.
While drivers no doubt enjoy the praise, those who face constant abuse and criticism via social media admit that it is an added pressure they just don’t need.
“I’ve not been on social media for a few weeks now,” he told reporters at Imola. “It’s just not something I enjoy. I don’t need to. It’s my life. I can do what I like.”
World champions Kimi Raikkonen and Sebastian Vettel were notorious for the way they avoided social media, neither starting accounts until the end of their careers. Indeed, the Finn once admitted that he would happily throw his phone into a lake to avoid all the ‘noise’.
“I’m probably the same,” admitted Norris. “I enjoy not going on my phone as much as I used to.
“I still use my phone and I’m still texting my friends and all these things,” he added. “I just see social media more, from my perspective, as a waste of my time and energy and I just don’t need it. I don’t want it. I don’t find it interesting.
“I just feel like I’ve got more time to do things that I want to do. I just want to spend time with my friends. I go and play golf and train and do things that are productive.”
Told that Lewis Hamilton has cut-back and has even followed a raft of accounts, even those of Charles Leclerc and Ferrari, Norris said: “Lewis can do what he wants. Good for him.”
Referring to a qualifying session in which he finished fourth, 0.292s down on his teammate, he said: “I made a lot of mistakes. It’s just never good enough in my final lap in qualifying, you know? Everyone goes quicker, and I always go slower. Just not good enough.
“I’m not going to just blame the car,” he insisted, “that’s not me. I felt good all weekend. I feel good in Q1 and Q2, I felt like the lap time is available, but when I try and go for lap time, I just doesn’t go.
“In my whole career qualifying has been my biggest strength, by a long way. This year it is just not going my way. I think we understand some reasons why. But, of course, I’m not going to be the happiest about it, because I want to be fighting for pole, and things are just not going the way that they should do.
“I’m working hard, the team are working hard, and, yeah, it’s difficult moments, but it’s the way it is at the minute.”
Check out our Saturday gallery from Imola here.
