Darts sensation backs Lando Norris for huge sporting honour
Lando Norris and Luke Littler are both up for the BBC's Sports Personality of the Year award.
Darts world number one Luke Littler has given his backing to Lando Norris for the prestigious BBC Sports Personality of the Year award.
Teenage darts sensation Littler is also nominated for the award, voted for by fans in a showpiece BBC event in recognition of outstanding British sporting achievement for the year.
Littler backs Lando Norris for top SPOTY honours
Lewis Hamilton is the most recent Formula 1 driver to have won Sports Personality of the Year, doing so for a second time in 2020 after winning his record-equalling seventh World Championship.
Formula 1 is the second-most successful sport in the long history of the award after athletics, with Hamilton among six British drivers to have won the award since it first began in 1954.
Hamilton is also the most recent male winner of the award, with tennis’ Emma Raducanu followed by two England Lionesses in Beth Mead and Mary Earps winning the award in consecutive years, before Olympic 800m gold medallist, Keely Hodgkinson, took top honours last year.
Littler, who finished as runner-up in 2024, shook his head when the subject was brought up after his first round victory at Alexandra Palace on Thursday night, believing himself to not be in the running this time around.
Watch our drifting finale with V14
“No, I don’t think so,” he said with a smile.
“But if I would have to give my winner, definitely Lando.”
Littler was a guest in the paddock at the 2024 British Grand Prix, teaching several drivers how to play darts after his incredible run to that year’s world final.
Norris and Littler are among six nominees for this year’s award, with golf’s Rory McIlroy and England women’s rugby player Ellie Kildunne nominated along with England women’s footballers Hannah Hampton and Chloe Kelly.
The ceremony takes place on Thursday 18 December with the general public able to vote on the night.
Norris has been busy since winning the World Championship on Sunday, partying into the night in Abu Dhabi before recovering in time for Pirelli tyre testing two days after.
He is set to pick up the Drivers’ Championship trophy at the FIA’s Prize Giving Gala on Friday night.
Read next: The sound of F1 2026 revealed as Honda posts huge update
