F1 News: Lando Norris Calls For Action Over Unruly Fans At Mexican Grand Prix
McLaren driver, Lando Norris, has called for rude fans to be removed from the paddock at the Mexican Grand Prix where there is increasing security concerns.
There have been a number of races this season where unruly fans have been an issue, and now a number of drivers have raised concerns with badly behaved fans in the paddocks this weekend. AlphaTauri driver, Pierre Gasly, revealed that there were many unauthorised people in the team garage earlier this weekend.
Security has now been improved, with bouncers guiding drivers around. However, Norris has said that guidelines need to be more strict. He explained:
“I don’t know what can be done about it. It’s hard to know exactly what needs to be done, what rule or whatever.
“But a simple thing where they sign to collect the tickets [saying] ‘You must show respect and have the appropriate behaviour when you're in the paddock to the drivers, especially in the lead up to any session’.
“And if that’s not followed and people are aggressive and grab you all of the time, biff them out.”
Norris was quick to note that it isn't all fans, and that he loves meeting them, but it still needs to be regulated. The McLaren driver continued:
"I love having the fans in here, especially when it’s kids and stuff and in a way, you can’t control what they do. Kids are kids, that’s cool.
"They’re looking up to us as being in our place one day and dreaming of what they’re doing and we’re their idols and heroes and so on. So for that, I think that’s cool, that’s fun, that’s life.
“It’s more the older people. There’s just not as much respect for personal space and things like that as there should be. They should feel lucky enough to be in the paddock and get to be as close as they are to us.
He added:
“Because it’s easy for us to always go around the back ways and have people literally shoving them out of the way and so on so that we don’t sign anything.
"But we want to do that and we're happy to do those things, and we want to walk down the paddock.
“There just needs to be a bit more respect from people for our personal space and boundaries.”
Norris will be starting in eighth place on the grid at the Mexico Grand Prix later today.