Damon Hill calls out TV gag taking aim at Lando Norris’ “underdog” tag after title win
On the first working day of Lando Norris’ life as a world champion, the confetti hadn’t even settled before a BBC panel show tried a punchline. Damon Hill wasn’t laughing.
Have I Got News For You’s social account took a swipe at Norris’ background after the McLaren driver sealed the 2025 title in Abu Dhabi by two points over Max Verstappen, snapping the Dutchman’s run of four straight championships. The show posted a gag framing Norris’ success as an “underdog” tale despite his family wealth, a line built around the old “less than a billion pounds” joke.
Hill fired back on X, calling the barb “pathetic” and defending the 25-year-old’s path to the title. He argued that Norris’ life has been nothing but racing and relentless preparation, and pushed back on the idea that Formula 1 is strictly a plaything for the ultra-rich. When one commenter suggested the sport is “for a very rich few,” Hill cut in with a blunt “No it’s not.”
Money and motorsport is a well-trodden talking point, and Norris has never hidden the fact his father Adam is a successful businessman. The elder Norris made his fortune in financial services and later invested in a number of ventures, including his son’s junior career. That context is real. But Hill’s point, essentially, is that the cheque doesn’t drive the car.
And what Norris did this season was drive the car like a champion. McLaren’s mid-season kick turned a long shot into a title fight, and Norris matched it by tightening the screws — fewer unforced errors, more ruthless Sundays, and a stubborn run of execution when the margin for error shrank to nothing. It was the kind of step forward we’ve expected from him for a while, and when it finally arrived, it stuck.
Hill expanded on that in his newspaper column, praising Norris’ temperament and, more importantly, his ability to learn. Early in the year, Norris still carried that easy-going air that can be mistaken for a lack of edge. As the stakes rose, he stripped away the noise, put the phone down, and started turning weekends into points — big ones. Martin Brundle neatly summed up the transformation as a jump “up a notch.” That’s exactly what it looked like from the paddock.
If you want to talk about what’s fair game, discuss how McLaren put a car under him that could live with the Red Bull and how Norris, finally, met that machinery with the kind of week-in, week-out precision that wins titles. Talk about how he survived Verstappen in a two-horse finale that felt like holding your breath for 58 laps. Talk about a championship that went to the wire and was decided by two points — details that actually tell the story of 2025.
There’s always room for a serious conversation about access and opportunity in the junior ladder. That’s valid and overdue, and everyone in the sport knows it. But reducing Norris’ title to a trust-fund punchline misses what makes Formula 1 compelling in the first place: once the lights go out, you still have to beat the best drivers in the world over 24 grands prix. Norris did.
Hill, a Williams man who knows what it takes to climb the last rung, closed his tribute with a simple welcome to the club. That’s probably the only greeting that matters to Norris right now. The rest? It can wait. The champion gets his day.
