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Lando Norris is on top of the world.
Norris finished in third place at Formula 1’s Abu Dhabi Grand Prix on Sunday night, but managed to do enough to hang on to the Drivers’ World Championship. He finished two points ahead of Max Verstappen and 13 points ahead of fellow McLaren teammate Oscar Piastri.
Norris was in tears as he credited his family and his McLaren team on helping him get through a “long journey.”
“It feels amazing. I now know what Max feels like a little bit,” Norris said. “… I’ve enjoyed it. It’s been a long year, but we did it. I’m so proud of everyone.”
He’s the 35th driver to win an F1 World Championship. The standings got real tight down the end of the season. Norris won the first race of the season, but Piastri captured four wins in the next five races. Verstappen, then, won his second race before Norris did.
Norris and Piastri would do most of the winning in the middle of the season before Verstappen ended his eight-race drought without being on top of the podium. The Red Bull driver would heat up following his victory at the Italian Grand Prix.
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Verstappen won six of the last nine races and made a surge to the top of the leaderboard. Norris and Piastri unintentionally made the race to the World Championship interesting when they were both disqualified from the Las Vegas Grand Prix.
Verstappen and Piastri would need Norris to really slip up to have a better chance at winning the championship, but the British superstar driver held it together and claimed the first F1 title of his career.
Norris ends Verstappen’s reign as world champion. The Red Bull star won the last four World Championships. Lewis Hamilton was the last driver not named Verstappen to pick up an F1 title, but he had a stranglehold on the sport from 2014 to 2020 with the only year he didn’t win was in 2016 (Nico Rosberg).
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Norris is the first McLaren driver to win since Hamilton did it in 2008.
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