McLaren F1 driver Norris shaves head for charity

McLaren Formula 1 driver Lando Norris kept his promise and shaved his head as he raised money towards the fight against the coronavirus crisis.

Over 36,000 people watched Norris cut his hair live on his Twitch channel, having ordered some hair clippers especially for the event.

The 20-year-old Briton promised to shave his head if he raised over $10,000 from donations during a livestream event last weekend on Twitch. Norris exceeded his target total by $2,000.

Twitch’s ‘Stream Aid’ raised a total of $2.7million to go towards the relief effort amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, which has now affected more than one million people worldwide and resulted in over 53,000 deaths.

Norris, who is self-isolating at home, shaved off his curly hair to a buzz cut, although it was not quite the full ‘Baldo Norris’ he had teased.

He had joked about shaving his driver number into his hair but he did not do so in the end, while people in the livestream urged him to incorporate the McLaren logo into his new cut.

Norris and teammate Carlos Sainz have agreed to take pay cuts amid the uncertainty caused by the coronavirus outbreak, with McLaren becoming the first F1 team to place some of its staff on furlough earlier this week.

“Thanks to all my team at McLaren, who are obviously not at work anymore, but for everyone who is working at McLaren and of course, Carlos and myself, it’s to get everyone back to work ASAP,” Norris said.

“Everyone works so hard over the winter to get everything ready for the season and now we’re all stuck in our homes.

“I want to say a big thanks to everyone in the team for everything they’ve done for us and I hope to get back to driving as soon as possible.”