Lando Norris said he was proud to disprove his doubters by claiming the breakthrough victory of his Formula 1 career in the Miami Grand Prix.
The McLaren driver rose from fifth on the grid to win the race with the aid of a fortuitously-timed Safety Car period. He left Max Verstappen behind at the restart and went on to win by over seven seconds.“It’s about time, huh” said Norris after taking the chequered flag first at Miami International Autodrome. “What a race.
“It’s been a long time coming, but finally I’ve been able to manage to do it. I’m so happy for my whole team. I finally delivered for them. Long day, tough race but finally on top so I’m over the moon.”
McLaren brought a significant upgrade package for their MCL38 this weekend. Norris was the only one of their drivers to have all of their new parts, and showed strong pace during the first qualifying session on Friday, where he set the quickest time of all but only took ninth on the grid for the sprint race.
He was taken out on the first lap of Saturday’s race, but improved to qualify fifth for the grand prix. He ran in that position early on but gained the benefit of extending his first stint when the Safety Car was deployed due to a collision between Kevin Magnussen and Logan Sargeant. That allowed him to pit and gain the lead from Verstappen.
“The whole weekend’s been good,” said Norris. “I’ve just had some little setbacks along the way.
“I knew on Friday we had the pace. Just a couple of mistakes here and there but today we managed to put it together. We had the perfect strategy, it all paid off. Thanks to McLaren and everyone and I’ll have to give a shout out to my mum and dad.”
Norris said he is “proud” to have finally scored his first grand prix victory. Today’s race was the 110th of an F1 career which began in 2019, and he had made a record 15 appearances on the podium without winning a race until this one.
“A lot of people doubted me along the way,” he acknowledged. “I made a lot of mistakes over my last five years of my career but today we put it all together.
“So this is all for the team. I stuck with McLaren because I believed in them and today proved exactly that.”
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2024 Miami Grand Prix
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Tristan
5th May 2024, 23:15
So happy for him and his fans, well deserved :)
BasCB (@bascb)
5th May 2024, 23:23
Yeah, well deserved.
John Beak (@johnbeak)
6th May 2024, 10:28
We all knew it was going to happen sooner or later. Sometimes all you need is a bit of luck to finally break through.
This is going to be a huge confidence boost. Lando without nervous qualifying mistakes is gonna be scary.