All eyes have been on Lewis Hamilton’s Ferrari fairytale, however the highlight has already switched to brave Lando Norris and his title tilt, writes OLIVER HOLT

Sometimes, there is a point in a Formula One legend’s career where the focus shifts to new heroes. Watching Lewis Hamilton, one of Britain’s greatest sportsmen, struggling to conjure a romantic last hurrah at Ferrari has assumed a macabre fascination but there is something more vital about the quest of the driver who is leading the race to replace him as this country’s next grand prix great.

It is way too early to write off Hamilton’s move to the Scuderia as a bust but there is no disguising the fact that it has been a torrid start to life with the Italian team for the seven-time world champion after his summer move from Mercedes.

Hamilton finished 10th in his Ferrari debut race in Australia and then found himself unable to better team-mate Charles Leclerc during Sunday’s Chinese Grand Prix, even though Leclerc had a damaged front wing. Hamilton placed sixth but both Ferraris were later disqualified because of technical irregularities. He has nine points after two races.

For now, at least, the more compelling story is the rise of Lando Norris, who found himself playing the straight man to Red Bull’s Max Verstappen‘s aggressive maverick genius last season and has had to listen to people telling him he is too nice, that he is not quite made of the right stuff, that he doesn’t have the grit, for much of his career.

I don’t buy that. I never have. Norris has already proved he’s made of the right stuff. He proved it again when McLaren’s chance of winning their first F1 Constructors’ Championship for more than a quarter of a century rested squarely on his shoulders last season at the final race in Abu Dhabi and he qualified on pole and led from lights out to the chequered flag.

Norris has suffered because he isn’t Verstappen. He has suffered because he has been outshone by a genius who has won the drivers’ title four times in the last four seasons, for the first three years when Verstappen was in a superior car. But that does not mean Norris cannot rule Formula One. And it does not make his bid to get to the top any less compelling.

It’s too early to rate Lewis Hamilton’s move to Ferrari as bust, but he has had a torrid start to life with the Italian team

The more compelling story, though, is the rise of Lando Norris, who is made of the right stuff

Norris has suffered because he isn’t Verstappen (left), a genius who has won the World Championship four years in a row

Not everyone is Ayrton Senna but Alain Prost won four world titles in more measured, less flamboyant way than his great rival and there are increasing signs that Norris, 25, whose McLaren is already widely believed to be the class of the field this season, may be beginning to get the measure of his great rival.

Perhaps it counts against Norris, too, that he is from a vastly different background to Hamilton. Hamilton fought his way up in the face of prejudice and modest means to batter the door down into F1 with McLaren. Norris was a rich kid, a scion of Millfield School, a boy with an easier path.

But if it’s not too counter-intuitive, there is a strength in overcoming that. There is a strength in overcoming the disdain some have aimed at him for his privileged background, there is a strength in having the hunger and the drive to succeed when he could have made money in safer, easier way. He has earned his shot at the drivers’ world title through his own talent.

There’s something else I like about Norris. He has had the courage to talk about being wracked by insecurity and self-doubt, issues which are taboo in the macho world of F1 drivers but subjects which he has embraced and which appear to have made him stronger.

And now his chance is upon him. He has the machinery to propel him to the title and he has the skill and the nerve to take his opportunity. His victory in the opening race of this season in Melbourne, in desperately difficult conditions, was masterful.

And on Sunday in Shanghai, he managed to hold off George Russell in the Mercedes despite wrestling with brake failure, to take second place behind his teammate Oscar Piastri, and maintain his lead at the top of the drivers’ table.

Piastri may well turn out to be his main challenger this season and, at a team such as McLaren, which strives to treat its drivers equally, two of the best young talents in the sport going head-to-head is still a mouth-watering prospect.

Norris had not yet been given the credit he deserves. As this F1 season gathers pace, that is about to change.

Norris has also had the courage to talk about being wracked by insecurity and self-doubt

The beautiful game – at half-time…

The best football match I saw last week came at half-time of Swindon Town’s League Two clash with Accrington Stanley on Saturday. I’d gone to the County Ground because it was the nearest stadium to where I live that was staging a league game.

It turned out to be a 0-0 draw but the game during the interval had plenty of goals. Under the auspices of the brilliant Swindon Town FC Community Foundation, the club marked World Down Syndrome Day by staging a game between their DS Active side and a rival team from Bristol City.

I’d spent a little of the morning reading social media messages from Newcastle United fans urging me to kill myself because I’d wondered, gently, whether the excellent Dan Burn was good enough to play for England at the 2026 World Cup. So maybe the simple, beautiful joy in the game of the DS Active lads playing at the County Ground, the utter commitment they showed, the way they celebrated their goals, the way they congratulated each other, the way they waved at their loved ones in the crowd every time they scored, the lap of honour they did at the end and the ovation they got from the supporters, resonated even more than it would have done.

Sometimes, you need reminding what a beautiful game football is and on Saturday at the County Ground, those lads did it for me.

R.I.P. Eddie

When I was in Cape Town in January 2020 for the Newlands Test between South Africa and England, Eddie Jordan invited me and my eldest daughter round to his apartment in Camps Bay for a couple of sundowners on his balcony. We sat there for a couple of hours, watching the most magnificent sunset I’ve ever seen, talking about old times and remembering the fun we had. It was the last time I saw him.

I had plenty of conversations with him since and swapped messages but I’m pleased that that’s how I’ll remember him. Everybody who knew Eddie loved Eddie and I was no exception.

When I was a young motor racing correspondent in the early 90s, new to the sport, largely ignorant of the sport, knowing no one, he was friendly and welcoming and kind and, yes, fun from the start. His joy in life was so infectious that he even persuaded me to do a bungee jump at the Indianapolis 500 in 1993. That was my first time and my last time but the fear he could see in me and the inelegance of my belly flop from the top of the crane gave him years of amusement in its retelling.

I was happy to give Eddie, who died last week, something back, something to laugh about, because he gave me so much.