{"id":457496,"date":"2026-02-06T11:36:11","date_gmt":"2026-02-06T11:36:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/457496\/"},"modified":"2026-02-06T11:36:11","modified_gmt":"2026-02-06T11:36:11","slug":"lando-norris-george-russell-giddy-about-being-f1-title-favourite","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/457496\/","title":{"rendered":"Lando Norris: George Russell ‘giddy’ about being F1 title favourite"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reigning world champion Lando Norris<\/a> has said his old friend George Russell<\/a> is “giddy” with excitement at being title favourite for Formula 1’s 2026 season.<\/p>\n

It’s exactly where Norris was 12 months ago — the McLaren driver eventually delivered on that billing to win his maiden F1 championship at the season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.<\/p>\n

Mercedes’ new 2026 project has been hyped for a while and its strong appearance at the Barcelona ‘Shakedown’ only reinforced the good feeling about its chances.<\/p>\n

Norris, speaking to select media ahead of the new season, said that he enjoyed seeing Russell in that spot.<\/p>\n

When asked how his interactions with other F1 rivals have gone now he’s champion, he said: “I spoke to Alex [Albon] and George the other day because we played padel together. Especially with them because we kind of came into F1 at the same time, I think it created more hunger for them [that I’m champion].<\/p>\n

Lando Norris says George Russell is excited to be Formula 1 title favourite.\u00a0Mark Sutton – Formula 1\/Formula 1 via Getty Images<\/p>\n

The Englishman then laughed, adding: “Especially for George because he is the bookies favourite, he’s all a bit giddy at the moment! That’s a great thing to see.”<\/p>\n

In an interview with Sky Sports, Norris also joked: “He is the massive favourite, to be honest with you! I completely agree with the bookmakers.”<\/p>\n

– Formula 1 in 2026: Race calendar, preseason testing dates, full schedule<\/a>
– 2026 F1 livery Power Rankings: Does Red Bull’s new look take P1?<\/a><\/p>\n

Norris has no doubt his fellow countryman has what it takes to win the title.<\/p>\n

“Me and George get along well. It’s not like we talk every day. But I think we have a lot of respect for each other.<\/p>\n

“He shows that towards me and I completely believe he’ll win a championship in the future, whether that’s this year or next year, whatever it may be. I’ve enjoyed my battles with him, and he’s a lovely guy, so I’ve enjoyed all of it.”<\/p>\n

F1’s season starts with the Australian Grand Prix on March 8.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Reigning world champion Lando Norris has said his old friend George Russell is “giddy” with excitement at being…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":457497,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[441],"tags":[49,48,578,576,577,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-457496","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-formula-1","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-f1","11":"tag-formula-1","12":"tag-formula1","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/457496","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=457496"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/457496\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/457497"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=457496"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=457496"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=457496"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}