7 July 2026 15:30 (UTC)
The reigning World Champion opens up on the importance of switching off from F1, his love of golf, and which other racing series he enjoys watching
Lando is seven holes into a round of golf at the Brickyard Crossing in Indianapolis when he sits down with us for a chat. “I’m a very lucky guy today,” he says, glancing at his surroundings. “Race track and golf. What else do you really need in life?”
There have been many different types of racing drivers over the years, but almost all of them fall into one of two categories: those whose performance stems from constantly thinking about racing and absolutely nothing else, and those who perform best when they can regularly switch off from the intensity of elite competition.
Lando firmly belongs to the latter. Since joining the Formula 1 grid eight years ago, he’s found several ways to disconnect - from sim racing and photography to skiing and padel. There was even a recent revelation, while on a shoot with Gemini, that he loves birdwatching from his road car (he said magpies are his favourite, if you’re wondering). But nothing quite hits the spot like golf.
“There's not many things better than just being out here on the golf course,” he says. “It’s peaceful. You can be with your friends. You can listen to some music. This is bliss for me right now. When you come here, you can just block everything out.”
Becoming more experienced and more comfortable in Formula 1 has allowed him to be stricter with how he spends his time.
“It's my eighth year in Formula 1…” he pauses and stops to count, almost not quite believing it himself. “'19, '20, '21, '22, '23, '24, '25, '26. Yep, eight. That's crazy. Honestly, it doesn’t feel like it was that long ago that I just started…
“The first few years of Formula 1, you're so attached to what you're doing, ‘Okay, I'm in Formula 1. I need to do this. I need to do that’. You don't have time to think about anything else. Whereas now, I know I can switch off, do something else, and it will help me when I come back to do a good job.”
It’s this mindset that propelled Lando to the 2025 World Championship. During the most intense, high-pressure season of his life, he consistently carved out time to try and disconnect. It’s a different kind of discipline, but one that was every bit as important - perhaps even more so - than the hours spent in the simulator, the debriefs with his engineers, or the strength and conditioning training.
Knowing it’s an important boundary to protect and a vital tool in his armoury doesn’t mean it comes naturally, though. Truly switching off is tough, especially when in the heart of the title fight.
Has becoming World Champion made it any easier?
“I think that's true,” he says. “I always thought I could switch off, but I think deep down, it was hard to ever actually turn off. Whereas now, I think because of the Championship last year, I'm able to disconnect more than ever before because I have the confidence that I can just come in and do what I have to do.”
Friends and family play a vital role in that disconnection. While there are moments when Lando prefers to be by himself at home or on a golf course, throughout his career he has purposefully surrounded himself with a core group of trusted friends. Together, they act as a mutual support system. They are present for each other’s major life milestones, but it’s the quiet times that Lando values more than anything - the moments away from the spotlight where he can just be a normal guy, whether that means relaxing on a remote beach or hitting the ski slopes.
“It can be easy to forget to really enjoy those moments away from racing when you're with your mates or your family,” Lando says. “I love being away, travelling to new places, and experiencing new things. That's what your parents tell you when you're younger: ‘Go out and experience the world.’ When you’re a kid, that’s not what you want to do, but as you get older, you really understand why.”
Since getting into golf six years ago, Lando has played some of the world’s most iconic courses, from Augusta to Wentworth, even sharing the green with stars like Tom Brady and Justin Rose. It’s a world away from where he first picked up a club - or rather, was forcibly handed one - by Carlos Sainz at a Topgolf in Woking.
“At that point, I thought, ‘Who the hell wants to play golf?'” Lando laughs.
Living near one another in Surrey, just a stone's throw from the McLaren factory, the pair frequently spent time together outside of their day jobs, forging a close friendship that endures today. At the time, Carlos was determined to introduce his new teammate to the second love of his life (his first being Formula 1, of course).
Lando quickly understood the obsession - though not because he was a natural.
“I don't know if golf comes naturally to anyone,” he says. “Maybe it does, but it's quite an abnormal movement - it's a weird sport. It definitely didn't come naturally to me, that's for sure.
“It's one of the coolest, most mentally frustrating and rewarding sports, I think, that you can play in the world. I had to graft. But that's one of the cool things about the sport. You can try again, try again, and try again. Constant improvements. With racing, you can’t just go out and race every day, but with golf, you can pick up a golf club every day and go and hit some balls.
“Was I nervous? Anything I do, I care about, and I want to do well in… If the tee box is near a clubhouse or somewhere people can see, that's an intimidating place to be. I think with any sport, you get a bit intimidated at first. But then when you hit that one ball that just flies, it's one of the coolest things.”
Lando was hooked. He kept going back. With Carlos, with friends from outside of Formula 1, by himself. He even installed a hitting net in his back garden so he could practice. He loved the game, but more importantly, his inner competitor had locked in.
“I think that’s the biggest similarity - the mindset of it, the constant strive for perfection,” he explains. “Whether it’s a lap or 18 holes. Taking a shot is the same as taking a corner – you have one attempt to do something perfectly, then you have a break, and then you try and do it again.
“Every time, you’re trying to learn from the last, trying to improve within a matter of minutes or even seconds. So having to very quickly understand what you just did, how to improve, and then applying that directly, is one of the things that carries over between the sports.
“That competitive side is what really feeds me the most. I don't play golf just to hit the ball. I do it because I want to try to be good. I want to beat my last round… And I want to beat my mates.”
It’s Lando’s first time playing at the Brickyard Crossing, the nearly century-old course attached to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. He and Zak have spent the day with their IndyCar counterparts, touring both the team’s Indianapolis-based factory and the Indianapolis Motor Speedway itself.
Naturally, conversation steers towards the fabled race, known as the greatest spectacle in racing.
“You’ve got to be a little bit crazy to do a race like this,” Lando says.
McLaren has won the historic race twice as a works team, in 1974 and 1976, courtesy of Johnny Rutherford, and once as a chassis manufacturer in 1972, with Mark Donohue at the wheel for Team Penske. After a more than 38-year absence, McLaren famously returned in 2017 with our then-Formula 1 driver, Fernando Alonso, in the cockpit. Since then, we’ve re-established a full-time presence in the series, while frequently expanding our line-up for the Indy 500 to field high-profile guest entries, including Juan Pablo Montoya, Tony Kanaan, Kyle Larson, and Ryan Hunter-Reay.
Could Lando ever join that elite list?
“That's a good question because I don't know if I would ever do it,” he says. “I think it's probably one of the coolest atmospheres you can experience at a sporting event. On race day, there are almost 300,000 people. That's pretty unbelievable.
“I have a lot of respect for the guys and girls that come out and race here because it's a pretty scary place to come and race at the speeds that they do. You can't just sign up to have fun on a race like this... You have to commit if you sign up. It's pretty gnarly, as they say.
“You never know. You never know.”
Oval circuits like IMS are entirely different beasts compared to traditional F1 tracks. Cars spend the entire race turning in a single direction at staggering speeds, which demands a unique car setup, a completely different skill set, and puts a driver through immense, sustained lateral G-forces.
But Lando isn’t a stranger to an oval, having tackled the iconic Rolex 24 at Daytona, driving an LMP2 car for United Autosports alongside Phil Hanson and Fernando Alonso. While Daytona’s famous sports car race utilises an infield road course rather than a pure oval, it gave the then teenager his first taste of American-style racing.
“That's a totally different ballgame compared to Indy,” he replies. “Daytona is flat out, but you're not going nearly as fast. You're probably hitting 180 or 190mph. Here at Indy, the guys are touching 230 to 240mph, and it's a lot less banked. Daytona has something like 31 degrees of banking - it's pretty nuts how steep it is. Indy is a lot flatter, and they're going a lot quicker.
“Honestly, I've only really done proper ovals on the simulator. I enjoy it because it's a completely different aspect of driving compared to what I'm used to, but the Indy 500 is a very, very unique event.”
Whether during a quiet moment on a Grand Prix weekend or at his home in Monaco, if there’s a race on, Lando will be watching. His interest isn't limited to four wheels. Lando’s gateway into motorsport was MotoGP. He grew up idolising Valentino Rossi during the Italian's dominant, title-winning years in the mid-to-late 2000s.
“As a sports fan, overall, the series I’ll always enjoy watching the most is MotoGP, which is probably the form that relies the least on aerodynamics,” he says. “Aerodynamics are a beautiful thing: the performance and speeds you get from them are incredible, but they hurt racing in its purest sense. With motorbikes, you get a much purer form of racing.
“I’ve loved MotoGP since I was a kid, long before I ever watched Formula 1, so deep down, I'll always have that passion for motorbikes. But honestly, as a racing fan, I enjoy everything. Whether it's the Endurance series, GTs, Le Mans, IndyCar, or Formula E, I try to watch every single series, every single weekend.”
But the one discipline he’d most like to have a turn at? It may surprise you.
“Rallying is actually one of the things I want to do the most - I really, really love it. Oliver [Solberg] is over there doing his thing, and I probably enjoy watching rally the most right now because that world is still so new to me. Between MotoGP and rallying, those are definitely my two favourite things at the minute.”
