Lando Norris admits that he enjoys doing gaming streams so that fans get to see him be himself, something that he thinks can be difficult for Formula 1 drivers to do. The McLaren man has built up a huge following on his Twitch channel, with 775,000 subscribers to date, and he believes that it offers a good opportunity to show fans his personality. "A lot of people think I just race cars that go round in a circle and that's about it," Norris told the BBC Sounds Press X to Continue podcast. "But I think until you really see it - and you've maybe watched Formula 1: Drive to Survive on Netflix - you see more behind the scenes and what a driver and a team has to go through to accomplish things. "Formula 1 is quite tight-knit, not many people get to see the driver's side of it. I think that's why I also stream a lot, because people get to just see me. I'm just a normal guy who streams and plays games every day. I'm not this magical kind of guy." Norris was among several drivers to stream their gaming antics during the early months of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, with their virtual racing filling the gap left by the absence of any real-life track action. The Briton thinks that gaming can "bring in new audiences" to F1. Whilst Norris is about to enter his third season as a Formula 1 driver, he admits that his love for gaming actually came before his passion for racing. "Games definitely came first," the 21-year-old explained. "When I was four or five years old, my dad used to play Gran Turismo. He never really got to do any racing himself - he was a cyclist - but he loved racing. "Growing up, watching him, I eventually got to the point where I wanted to beat him, so then I became very competitive and got into racing. We had a little steering wheel with the pedals, and I would sit on my dad's lap, and have a go."
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