I’ve witnessed the evolution of the world’s most technologically advanced race cars and the hotheads who pilot them over 30-plus years of Formula 1 fandom. As a kid, I witnessed brawny middle-aged men manhandle race cars with laser-focused anger and unbridled bravery. As an adult, I watch skinny-looking kids dance with the devil every other weekend as they strap themselves into carbon fiber rockets in search of validation, worldwide fame, and seven-figure payouts. One thing I had never seen before, however, was a potential F1 world champion jump into a go-kart and drive it so damn perfectly that it made me question if anyone—including myself—appreciated just how good today’s crop of F1 racers really is.
It’s evident that to get to F1, you must first dominate the karting scene and every feeder series along the way. Seeing a current F1 star shining in a kart, then, regardless of how long it’s been since their last race, isn’t a revelation. Yet, despite having been a shifter kart racer myself and witnessing some phenomenal kart battles in my lifetime—some of them with IndyCar and sports car drivers—I wasn’t ready for the raw display of driving skill McLaren’s Lando Norris put on just feet away from me. Perhaps even more surprisingly, his boss, Zak Brown, wasn’t that far off the pace.
The Woking squad had a dream year in the F1 World Championship, though not precisely the perfect year Red Bull and Mercedes have enjoyed in the past. Nonetheless, winning the Constructors’ Championship with six rounds to go is an impressive feat, one that can be felt throughout the entire organization, from F1 to IndyCar.
McLaren’s two massively talented drivers, Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri, had their share of run-ins so far this year. But despite some questionable team calls and performances throughout the season, Norris was crowned F1 world champion. At the same time, Piastri came in third, and as a result, they occasionally need to blow off some steam. One of those times was earlier this summer, at the very beginning of the mandatory F1 summer break, just a couple of days after the team’s 1-2 finish at the Hungarian Grand Prix.
The Setting
I’m standing on hallowed ground, a place that every car enthusiast would immediately recognize. The chilly morning breeze, typical of the English countryside even in the summer months, is amplified as a big helicopter flies over me, incoming from Woking. Inside it is McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown, drivers’ title contender Lando Norris, voice of F1 David Croft (better known as “Crofty”), and a few of their colleagues.
The chopper lands down the runway from me—or, should I say, down the back straight? If you haven’t guessed it, I’m at Dunsfold Aerodrome, better known as the Top Gear Test Track.
I’m here to witness a challenge, one that I first scoffed at as yet another publicity stunt when I was first invited. But the more I learned about the project, the more curious I became. See, McLaren Racing sponsor eBay set out to create a one-of-a-kind challenge for the papaya duo. Together with Dewalt, they masterminded a go-kart competition that had all the trimmings of a made-for-Instagram sponsor “activation.” Y’know, one of the hundreds of appearances that F1 drivers are subjected to every racing season. But as I was about to find out, there was nothing basic about this gig, much less the karts.
The Equipment
Parked next to me were two fully custom-built karts. I’m not talking about your off-the-shelf rides powered by Harbor Freight motors, nor an electric kart from Amazon. These were proper racing karts with Italian OTK chassis and CIK-FIA-approved bodywork, just like the ones you see tomorrow’s stars race at Ocala in Florida or South Garda in Italy.
Most notable was the custom fabrication of these chassis and the bespoke powertrain that made them go. Instead of a fuel tank, there was a tool bag hiding some batteries and wiring. And instead of a race-fuel-sipping TaG engine that revs to 16,000 rpm, there were two 54V Dewalt chainsaws driving the rear axle (without the saws, of course) attached to a custom tray masquerading as a rear wing. Powering this wild contraption was a 40-kW e-bike motor, which, thanks to the engineering wizardry of firm Hazell Nutz—who has worked on many high-profile builds, including the latest Batmobile—could power those karts to over 110 mph.
Everything on the karts had been purchased on eBay, because, as Brown said in front of the cameras, “You can buy anything on eBay, it’s like Christmas at my house every day.” However, what he later told me, away from the microphones, was that he even orders his deodorant on eBay. Anyhow, from the LN-licensed chassis to the tires, every nut and bolt used for the build was sourced online via the auction giant, with Dewalt offering up the power goodies.
The Challenge
The McLaren contingency was quickly shuttled from the chopper to a tiny building that, despite watching hundreds of Top Gear episodes, I didn’t know existed. Dubbed the “McLaren Shed,” this dilapidated building located south of Hammerhead corner looks mostly abandoned inside and out, yet still sports a dated McLaren sign on its facade, along with broken vertical blinds visible through the main window. Inside, there are some office chairs strewn about, a kitchenette, a bathroom, and some… tires and stuff.
Eventually, Norris, his boss, his handler, and nearly a dozen other people walked out of the shed and were headed in my direction. Norris and Brown were suited in official Papaya Orange racing suits. The former had his signature highlighter-yellow-and-black racing helmet, while the latter had a plain white one. Both of them were geeked to see the karts—especially Norris—or at least I gathered as much from about five feet away.
After a brief introduction to their machinery, my attention turned to the event’s emcee of sorts, who was none other than Crofty. I have to admit that the moment I heard his voice, I was immediately captivated by it, though at the time, surrounded by several people I was only used to seeing on TV, I could not figure out whose it was.
“I swear that voice is extremely familiar,” I told Anna, the person primarily responsible for having me there as the only media outlet in the world witnessing this. “It’s Crofty, from Sky Sports,” she said.
Wow, I felt dumb. But in my defense, I had never seen Crofty; I had only heard him.
The challenge, as narrated by the voice of F1, would be broken up into three parts: a slalom, a pit stop, and a hot lap. A driver will hop into a kart, drive to the slalom start line, and wait for the flag to signal the start of the challenge. At that point, the clock will start, and the driver will do a lap of the challenge before returning to the starting gate, where they must stop inside the designated box. After making a complete stop, the driver will proceed to the makeshift pit box, hop out of the kart, remove the spare kart’s tire with a Dewalt power tool, and proceed to the last challenge: the hot lap. The driver will then hop back into the saddle and take off at full speed for two laps around a shortened version of the Top Gear track. Whoever clocks the quickest time wins.
Skills to Pay the Bills
Not one soul in the group of 100 people or so who put together the event thought Norris would lose. I mean, Brown is a serious racer and, along with Mercedes boss Toto Wolff, likely has the best driving chops of any team executive in the F1 paddock. Still, beating his own driver on a go-kart was a tall and maybe impossible order.
Norris jumped into the kart and wiggled himself into a comfortable position. He had already taken the kart for a shakedown run, so he sort of knew what to expect, though it’s worth highlighting that up until 10 minutes before, he had never even seen this thing, let alone learned its handling characteristics. He crept up to the starting line and waited for the flag.
The next three minutes or so were a display of raw driving skill that I had never seen before in my life. I can only compare it to watching some of Ayrton Senna’s onboard footage for the very first time, and going, “Wow, yeah, that’s special.” Likewise, seeing Norris make that kart dance through the slalom and making the rear end rotate as if the front tires were quite literally bolted to the ground left me in awe. And not like I need to prove my track record as a professional witness/passenger, but I’ve ridden shotgun with supremely talented drivers like Tom Kristensen, Max Verstappen, and, for the sake of keeping things in the Top Gear family, the longest-standing Stig, Ben Collins. I’m not what you’d call easy to impress.
I’m not claiming Norris is Senna, nor that he is more or less talented than any of those other racers, but in that custom-built kart, he showed exactly why he’s worthy of taking the No. 1 away from Max Verstappen. Whether he can win another three championships, only time will tell, but he is undoubtedly a master of his craft.
After the autocross round, Norris continued with the rest of the challenge and rocketed down the short straight. He blasted into the famous Follow-Through (which always looked amazing on TV, by the way), and then made a right turn at Chicago to head back down toward me. It was in that sector that the kart reached about 100 mph before a hard-braking event going into Hammerhead, a corner known for testing a car’s balance and the driver’s skill. Norris controlled the front and rear of the kart under heavy braking as if he had done 100 laps on the thing, before pitching it left and then right for his second lap around. Truth be told, it was mildly unsettling seeing a bright-yellow kart come at me at such speed and not seeing it slow down until the very last few feet ahead of the corner. Maybe it’s because I knew what was at stake for Norris if anything were to fail at that very moment, or perhaps because I was literally standing in harm’s way. Shrug.
With Norris’ run complete, it was time for the big boss to get his shot—but he wasn’t off to a great start. Where Norris finessed his way through the cones and made the kart waltz through the cones with smooth hands, Brown looked choppy and stiff. He knocked down a couple of cones through his first run, and when it came time to make the kart rotate 180 degrees, he struggled to sling the rear end enough to clear the obstacle. “So this is the difference between a good racing driver and an F1 star,” I said to myself.
Brown’s painful autocross stint was thankfully over, and he headed to the pit box for the mandatory battery stop. This wouldn’t be a friendly competition without some shenanigans, so Norris had previously made sure to make things harder for Brown by making those Dewalt power tools just a bit harder to reach.
But despite the minor setback, Brown took off and bolted down the road course like a bat out of hell, and I’d dare say that he had even more cojones than Norris through the fast corners. The self-made businessman, racing enthusiast, car collector, and F1 executive arrived so hot into Hammerhead that there was an audible gasp from everyone watching. He locked up the tires and briefly looked like he was going to spin around, but he magically kept it hooked up and made the corner. He sped off into the distance and did it all over again. Somehow, someway, it looked like Brown had done enough by the end to make up for his earlier struggles.
Back in the pits, Brown, Norris, and Crofty shared some playful shit-talking about what had just taken place, though it was mostly Norris giving his boss crap about his weight and whether his ribs were killing him. Brown said he was out of breath and quickly asked for a time penalty for Lando to compensate for the weight disparity. The judge… err, Crofty… was having none of it.
And the Winner Is…
Zak Brown
- Challenge Time: 2:21 minutes
- Penalties: +15 sec (3 cone hits)
- Final Time: 2:36 minutes
Lando Norris
- Challenge Time: 2:26 minutes
- Penalties: +5 sec (overshoot stop)
- Final Time: 2:31 minutes
Of course it’s Lando, why would you ever think otherwise? But the fact that Brown was only five seconds off the pace is downright impressive. In fact, had he not scored those penalties, he could’ve won the thing or been extremely close.
I’m well aware that my experience in no way, shape, or form reveals anything new. A first-class F1 driver can whip a kart around and beat his boss. Whoop-de-doo. That’s not the point here; the point is that racing fans often argue that today’s drivers aren’t as good as they used to be, simply because their cars are more advanced and feature technology that was unheard of back in the ‘80s, ‘90s, and even the 2000s. Yet, what I witnessed convinced me that, if you give Norris Senna’s old McLaren and plenty of test time, he could very well surprise us all.
Watch the entire thing here!
Lando VS Zak: Go Karting Edition | DEWALT & eBay
Email the author at jerry@thedrive.com
www.thedrive.com
#Watched #Champ #Lando #Norris #Whoop #McLaren #Boss #Kart #Race #Opened #Eyes
