Norris’ title year writes a new chapter with BBC SPOTY nomination

When the lights went out on Lando Norris’s title-deciding Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, it felt like the climax of a long, nervy novel. But less than a week later, the McLaren driver has already started the sequel.

The newly crowned Formula 1 world champion has been named among the six contenders for the 2025 BBC Sports Personality of the Year award, a landmark British honour that sits alongside his hard-won drivers’ crown. On a cold December morning, as mechanics are still sweeping the last grains of Marina sand from McLaren’s garage, Norris’s name was read out by the BBC alongside Hannah Hampton, Chloe Kelly, Ellie Kildunne, Luke Littler and Rory McIlroy.

The BBC confirmed the shortlist on Thursday, noting that Norris, 26, “became the 11th Briton to win a Formula 1 drivers’ championship – emerging victorious in the closest finish to a season for 15 years,” after overturning a 34‑point deficit to team-mate Oscar Piastri with a blistering late run that included back‑to‑back wins in Mexico and Brazil.

RacingNews365 framed the nomination as another possible trophy in a year of silverware, stressing that Norris has been put forward for Sports Personality “following his F1 title triumph over Max Verstappen and Oscar Piastri” and that he has already committed to running the champion’s number 1 on his McLaren in 2026. It is his first time on the shortlist, and he is bidding to become the sixth F1 driver – after the likes of Lewis Hamilton, Damon Hill and Nigel Mansell – to win the award since its inception in 1954.

In the betting markets and the studio chatter, Norris is not merely making up the numbers. RacingNews365 reports him as second favourite behind McIlroy, while the Daily Mail notes that bookmakers have the McLaren star firmly in the mix after his Abu Dhabi heroics. Bet365’s rundown of the contenders highlights how he “became just the 11th Briton to win a Formula 1 drivers’ championship, edging out Max Verstappen in a tense final race in Abu Dhabi,” a season that came down to Norris finishing third under the Yas Marina floodlights to win the title by just two points.

What makes this nomination feel different is that it crystallises more than lap times and tyre choices. As ESPN recently explored, Norris has spent years wearing his vulnerability on his sleeve, talking openly about nerves, pressure and the mental rituals he leans on in the cockpit. After finally sealing the championship, he summed it up with a simple refrain: he had “done it my way”, a softer-edged champion in a paddock that usually rewards stone-faced ruthlessness.

That human story is part of what BBC Sport’s director Alex Kay‑Jelski was alluding to when he described 2025 as a year “driven by athletes whose performances belong in the history books.”

“Each one has delivered moments of pure brilliance that have defined 2025. It’s been incredible to watch, and I can’t wait to honour their achievements, and to see who the nation chooses as the BBC Sports Personality of the Year 2025.”

— Alex Kay‑Jelski, speaking via BBC Sport

For Norris, those moments of brilliance have become part of a wider redemption arc. Twelve months ago he was still carrying the scars of a faltering 2024 title bid and the long-running jibe of “Lando No Wins”. This season he had to manage not just Verstappen’s relentless Red Bull but the DRS‑assisted pressure of his own team-mate, often running in the dirty air of the sister McLaren and timing his pit windows to perfection rather than forcing desperate undercuts.

We saw the culmination of that evolution in Abu Dhabi. With a world championship at stake and strategy sheets thick with what‑ifs, Norris didn’t need the win; he needed control. He drove within himself, nursing tyres, avoiding the chaos in the DRS train behind and resisting the urge to chase Verstappen and Piastri at all costs. Third place, on that night, was a masterclass.

Now the recognition shifts from the paddock to the public. The SPOTY ceremony, to be broadcast from Salford on 18 December, will invite viewers to vote live for their winner. Under the bright studio lights instead of the glare of a visor, Norris will stand alongside champions from football, rugby, golf and darts—six careers converging on a single stage, six different ways of handling pressure.

Whether he leaves with another trophy or simply another ovation, this nomination underlines that Norris’s season has transcended sector times. From Abu Dhabi’s violet dusk to a December studio under BBC lights, Britain is not just celebrating a champion in papaya overalls; it is embracing the person who climbed into that cockpit, doubts and all, and wrote another chapter in the country’s long love affair with Formula 1.