ABU DHABI — A tearful Lando Norris claimed his maiden Formula One world drivers’ title in Abu Dhabi, ending Max Verstappen’s four-year reign.
The Briton finished third in the season-closer behind race winner Verstappen and the other title challenger, McLaren teammate Oscar Piastri, to claim the crown by two points.
After crossing the line his team engineer told him: “That’s it mate, you are world champion, world champion!”
“Thank you, guys, you made a kid’s dream come true,” he replied.
“I haven’t cried in a while, I didn’t think I would cry but I did,” Norris said on the podium in the desert night at the floodlit Yas Marina circuit.
“I want to thank my mum, my dad, they’ve supported me since the beginning.
“It feels amazing, I know now what Max feels like a little bit. I want to congratulate both Max and Oscar, I’ve enjoyed it, it’s been a long year!” he added according to AFP.
McLaren, headed by team principal Andrea Stella and CEO Brown, secured back-to-back constructors’ titles in Singapore last month. “That was exciting, a little too exciting, awesome,” said Brown.
“What an effort, Lando and Oscar, what a fantastic season!” added the American.
Norris becomes Britain’s first world champion since Lewis Hamilton in 2020 with this 13th drivers’ crown for McLaren.
The 26-year-old’s success comes over half a century after Emerson Fittipaldi claimed the British marque’s first drivers’ title in 1974.
A galaxy of F1 greats followed – James Hunt (1976), Niki Lauda (1984), Alain Prost (1985, 1986, 1989), Ayrton Senna (1988, 1990, 1991), Mikka Hakkinen (1998, 1999) and Hamilton in 2008.
Assessing his path to glory Norris added: “As we’ve seen many times, anything can happen. So, I just kept pushing. I wanted to fight to the end. (Verstappen and Piastri) certainly did not make my life easy this year. But I am happy!
“It has been a long journey with McLaren; I’ve been with them for nine years.
“For me to bring something back to them, I feel like I did my part for the team this year so I’m proud of myself.”
Piastri, who had led the championship for much of the season before being overtaken by Norris in Mexico, finished third in the standings.
The season-closer was the first time the title was decided by a contest involving more than two drivers since a four-way scrap at the final race in Abu Dhabi in 2010.
“I’m not crying,” he said through the sobbing inside his helmet before being embraced by his equally tearful mother, Cisca, as he then tried to embrace as many of his team as he could.
Twenty minutes later as he stood on the podium as world champion, the tears were still streaming.
This was stirring stuff indeed and while F1 can at times be a cold, technocratic sport, this was a reminder that it is very much made up of all too human participants and Norris was a popular victor, embraced enthusiastically by his fellow drivers at the end.
There were understandably moving moments at McLaren too, where tears were not being held back in the garage.
As Norris becomes the 11th British driver to take a world championship it finally brought to an end McLaren’s drivers’ championship drought that stretched back to 2008 when Lewis Hamilton last won it for the team.
It was 27 years since McLaren had last secured the drivers’ and constructors’ double in 1998, with Mika Häkkinen the champion and David Coulthard third.
Norris used it to do exactly what was required of him in an enormously intense and high-pressure contest at the Yas Marina Circuit, including making a series of bold overtakes and with flawless execution by himself and McLaren.
For the Australian Piastri – who had looked so strong in the championship leading from the fifth round in Saudi Arabia to the 20th, the Mexican GP – there was clear disappointment that he had faltered in the final third to be surpassed by his teammate but he gave his all in Abu Dhabi.
He emerges having demonstrated he too is world champion material. To have been so competitive in only his third season in F1, taking seven wins, was still very impressive and he feels his time is still yet to come. Brown was not the only person to predict that Piastri was a future world champion.
