Lando Norris feels his more serious approach towards social media in 2020 led some fans to believe he was doing a better job in his second Formula 1 season.
Norris caught attention throughout his junior career for his humorous and entertaining posts on social media, and continued the approach through his rookie F1 campaign in 2019.
But the McLaren driver said following his debut season that he wanted to be less jokey in his second year, believing there were areas he could focus on more.
Reflecting on his change in approach towards social media in 2020, Norris explained how he opted against making light of on-track struggles as he may have done in the past.
“On the whole, I would say there have been a lot less times and a lot less things, I guess mainly I post in social media, which are jokey,” Norris told Autosport.
“A lot of that is where it comes from, just what I decide to post post-race. When it’s a difficult day [in 2019], I always took it as a bit of a joke, or portrayed it as a joke with some of my comments on social media and things.
“Sometimes [last] year all I’ve done is [write], ‘tough day in the office, head down onto the next one’. And it’s as simple as that.
“That’s exactly the same thing as what I would do last year, in that I would go to the factory and work on the next race and try and figure out what went wrong. But I’d just post a joke about it on social media.
“People would love that, but also just think, ‘oh he’s not doing any work, that’s why he’s not doing well enough, because he is just too jokey’.
“That’s just how life is, I guess, and how social media works, that’s the picture people paint of you.”
Norris scored his maiden F1 podium at the 2020 season opener in Austria, and picked up almost twice as many points as his rookie campaign, helping McLaren take third place in the constructors’ championship.
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Norris said that he still received some feedback that he was not working hard enough due to his approach towards social media, but said those within the team knew how he worked and how committed he was.
“I still get similar things from a lot of people about how I’m too jokey still and how I don’t work hard enough and so on,” Norris explained.
“But within the team, people know what I do, and that’s all that matters in my opinion, and what I know of myself and how hard I work and things like that.
“I’ve posted more, ‘head down, onto the next one’, and that’s it. I haven’t made a joke about it, and people then portray that differently and say that I’m working better and that I’m doing a better job this year.
“With something I post, people paint two pictures of it. But I’m doing a very similar thing in terms of I’m going back to the factory, I’m going home and thinking about that next race and how to do better.
“That’s simply all I’ve done, but I’m still who I am within the paddock, I still say what I say, I still laugh, because I laugh at jokes because they’re funny.
“I don’t try and be someone fake and someone I’m not.”