Norris criticises behaviour of some fans: "It's just disrespectful"

Lando Norris is very popular among Formula 1 viewers. Recently, he was chosen as the second most popular Formula 1 driver by those same viewers in a large scale survey, whereby he only had to surpass Max Verstappen. The young Briton is very candid about the different aspects of his fame, including its dark side.

"I think the one bad thing is just personal life with friends, people who through no fault of their own get put into the spotlight sometimes because of being seen with me or me following them on social media or something," Norris says in an interview with ESPN.

He continued: "I think that's been the worst side of it: someone who is just quiet on their own and they're seen with me at dinner or on a post on Instagram. There's still a lot of fans who are just not nice and use people and things like that."

"I would say that's the biggest downside to popularity, people like that. The people who don't respect your personal life at all and the people you hang out with," he adds. "It's disrespectful, I feel, towards someone who is being abused on social media through no fault of their own because they are friends with me."

When it comes to himself, on the other hand, Norris is very lenient. As such, he doesn't mind being spoken to in public, even if he's somewhere for a private matter. "Of course it might not be the nicest thing if you're in the middle of a dinner and people come and ask for a picture, but I feel like I can't say no," the McLaren driver explained.

"I feel like they'd hate me and they wouldn't be my fan anymore. I hate saying no, that's a problem sometimes, maybe I need to start saying no a bit more often. But I struggle to," Norris said.