Gold car, bronze on the night: Lando Norris finishes third in BBC Sports Personality vote
Lando Norris doesn’t often miss the apex. But on a night when Britain casts a public vote for its sporting hero, the freshly minted Formula 1 World Champion had to settle for third. Rory McIlroy took the BBC’s Sports Personality of the Year, with England rugby star Ellie Kildunne runner-up. Norris, beaming in via video from a well-earned off-season breather, rounded out the podium.
If you’re surprised, you haven’t watched this show before. SPOTY has always been a mood check as much as a merit badge, and 2025 was the year McIlroy completed the career Grand Slam — a stat that speaks beyond petrolheads. The Northern Irishman soaked up the moment, tipping his cap to the shortlist and calling it “the year dreams are made of.” Hard to argue.
Norris had a fairly dreamlike year himself. He pulled off a comeback that will sit comfortably in McLaren folklore, overturning a 34-point deficit to Oscar Piastri after Zandvoort and edging the title by two points. Seven wins along the way, McLaren’s first Drivers’ crown of the modern era, and the Constructors’ title to go with it. Max Verstappen’s four-year run ended. Orange gave way to papaya.
He didn’t dress it up as a pressure-free surge, either. Zandvoort wasn’t liberating, it was a jolt. Norris admitted he didn’t suddenly drive “with nothing to lose.” Quite the opposite: he doubled down. More simulator time, more voices in the room, more fine-tuning away from the circuit. He widened the circle of specialists around him and squeezed performance from the margins. That relentless middle stanza — the one that broke the back of the points swing — was no accident.
For all that, this is the BBC vote, and motorsport rarely wins it by default. It leans on scale and sentiment. McIlroy’s Augusta-to-Ryder Cup arc was built for primetime; Kildunne’s stardom in a World Cup-winning England side captured a broader audience; and the rest of the list — Lionesses Chloe Kelly and Hannah Hampton, plus darts phenom Luke Littler — brought their own fanbases to the party.
Norris was gracious, and absent, appearing via live link with the same relaxed candor we’ve seen as he’s grown into the center of McLaren’s universe. He thanked the room, apologized for not being there, and allowed a smile to wander across his face: it’s been “a really enjoyable year.” Understatement of the season.
Strip away the TV glitz, and his campaign carries the sort of weight that transcends an end-of-year trophy. He didn’t just break Verstappen’s hold on the crown; he did it in partnership with a team that has clawed its way back from midfield purgatory. Piastri pushed him hard in the same car, and that matters. Titles feel different when your toughest fight is across the garage.
McLaren’s double also reshuffled the paddock’s balance of power. That’s not the stuff SPOTY voters pore over, but it’s the narrative that will frame 2026 and beyond: a driver coming into his peak, a team that’s rebuilt its foundations, and a rivalry in-house that sharpened both sides. If Norris sounded like a man who’d found another gear after Zandvoort, it’s because he did — by design, not by destiny.
So no glass trophy to put next to the FIA silverware. He’ll live. Drivers judge themselves by Sundays, not by shows. And if there’s one thing this season taught us, it’s that Norris has learned how to win when it matters and how to carry a team that’s now a title machine again.
Public votes tell a story. Championships tell the truth. On balance, Norris walks out of 2025 with exactly what he came for. The rest is noise.
