Norris shows McLaren ready to return to center stage

It has been a long wait for the McLaren team to develop its program and prepare cars capable of competing with Red Bull, Ferrari and Mercedes. Norris spent the time scrolling through social media, looking for motivation from his enemies.

His moment came on Sunday in his 110th career start when he took his first victory by beating three-time reigning F1 champion Max Verstappen at the Miami Grand Prix. Verstappen had won the first two races at Miami and Saturday’s sprint race before hitting a cone early on Sunday to give Norris his opportunity.

“I never believed in what I could do, so I’m happy to put that aside and prove a lot of people wrong,” Norris said. “I go on Instagram and I like all the comments from people who treat me badly. I love it. It makes me smile more than anything, especially ‘Lando No-Wins.’ It’s become the thing.

“For me to finally be able to prove these people wrong and prove to those who didn’t think I could go out and do it, it made me smile even bigger. So I thank them all.”

He showed up at the post-race press conference in a champagne-soaked fire suit. Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton led the congratulatory hugs for Norris, and Verstappen and third-place finisher Charles Leclerc splashed champagne directly in Norris’ face on the podium.

He had closed his eyes and turned his smiling face toward the sky while “God Save the King” played, and he had cradled the winning trophy as if it were a baby. He crowd-surfed with his McLaren crew and when he saw boss Zak Brown heading towards him, he warned, “Don’t break my ribs,” in anticipation of the hug.

“I’m shivering like crazy because I wanted to keep all my champagne on me,” Norris laughed, “and now I’m really cold.”

McLaren needed this victory, the first since 2022 (Daniel Ricciardo), and it came on a weekend in which the team introduced massive improvements that it was certain would make its cars more competitive. Norris, 24, said he arrived Sunday thinking he ‘I would win.

Norris had promised his ailing grandmother last week that victory was on the horizon, but he admitted: “I didn’t think it would happen so soon.”

This year, McLaren has scored victories in F1, Formula E and IndyCar, where Pato O’Ward was last week declared the winner of the season-opening race because Josef Newgarden was disqualified.

The next three IndyCar weekends will be held at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in preparation for the May 26 Indianapolis 500. McLaren must be feeling some pressure after a winless 2023 season and a somewhat disastrous Indy 500.

The McLaren organization is closely knit – IndyCar drivers were on social media celebrating Norris as soon as he crossed the finish line – and the F1 win is a boost at the perfect time of the season. McLaren will also travel to Indy with NASCAR superstar Kyle Larson, who will become the fifth driver in history to attempt to complete 1,100 miles of racing in one day in NASCAR’s Indy 500 and Coca-Cola 600.

The hype surrounding Larson’s attempt at “The Double” helped McLaren regain its status as one of motorsport’s most recognizable brands.

It’s vindication for Brown, an American who began his motorsport career in a marketing role in Indianapolis and now runs one of the biggest racing brands on the planet.

Brown likes to stir things up and make sure drama stays at the forefront of almost every race weekend, and he was at it again in Miami when he took a chance at Red Bull by hinting that the famous Automotive designer Adrian Newey left the team because of the fallout. of an investigation into inappropriate conduct by team principal Christian Horner.

Brown went so far as to say that Newey was probably the first to head for the exit door, an assumption he made based on “all the resumes” floating around the paddock.

He’s not letting up in IndyCar either, and rival team owner Chip Ganassi and Brown are not friendly. Brown signed Ganassi driver Alex Palou for 2023 and the two teams used a mediator to fight for the two-time IndyCar champion. It was decided that Palou would join McLaren in 2024, but Palou hesitated last August and is now being pursued by McLaren for more than $30 million.

McLaren last week fired David Malukas before he even made an IndyCar start for the team due to injuries he suffered in a mountain bike accident before the season, angering McLaren’s millennial fans. Malukas. This followed the unpopular sackings of James Hinchcliffe and Oliver Askew, both made after McLaren entered the series with a majority stake in an existing team.

Brown shamelessly pursues free agents without worrying about how many seats he actually has available. This is partly how this Palou mess started: when Palou looked at the F1 landscape, he realized that Norris wasn’t going anywhere and that McLaren would probably never have a place for him in the series.

If he wanted to stay in IndyCar, Palou believed he would stay with the team that helped him win two championships rather than move to winless, revolving-door McLaren. Although the decision ultimately could have been the right one for Palou, Brown lifted McLaren out of a decade-long slump and Norris’ victory made the entire organization feel unbeatable.