Norris reveals immediate fear after Piastri misfortune

Lando Norris has shared how he reacted to seeing Oscar Piastri spun around at the first corner of the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.

The British driver took victory at the Yas Marina Circuit, securing McLaren’s first constructors’ championship since 1998 in the process.

However, his team-mate endured a more difficult race from second on the grid. When Max Verstappen launched his Red Bull up the inside of the Australian at Turn 1 it set both tumbling down the order, earning the Dutchman a 10-second time penalty.

Piastri recovered to tenth place – via a 10-second time penalty for causing a collision of his own with Franco Colapinto – to score a point.

Whilst that result was ultimately inconsequential to the final constructors’ standings, it did leave his team-mate fighting Carlos Sainz one-on-one up front, with the second Ferrari of Charles Leclerc shortly joining the party from the lowly depths of P19 on the grid.

“It was ours to lose and I’m sure at certain moments people thought that it was not far away from being lost,” Norris reflected when speaking to media including RacingNews365.

“Two Ferraris up there and Charles doing a great job to get back to the podium.

“Oscar was super unlucky. He got taken out in Turn 1. So for a minute, my heart was like, ‘oh God, it’s not looking as likely’.

“But if I just kept my head down and kept focused, I knew I could deliver and do what I got to do.”

The bigger picture

Tensions were high heading into the final race of the year. Although Ferrari’s wait has been a decade shorter than McLaren’s drought, the stakes felt particularly high for the two storied F1 rivals.

The Italian team suffered two pieces of misfortune in Abu Dhabi that made their quest near impossible, with Leclerc having to take a 10-place grid penalty, something that was compounded by a poor qualifying session.

Nevertheless, the Scuderia were able to trim the deficit from 21 points to 14, despite McLaren looking out the front row during the grid-setting hour.

Early-race scares aside, Norris expressed his pride in helping McLaren to a first constructors’ crown in over a quarter of a century.

“The bigger picture of us winning a championship for the first time in 26 years, you wouldn’t have thought that when you say the name McLaren,” he said.

“It feels wrong to say that they’ve not won a championship in 25 years [sic].

“But for me to be part of that, for Oscar to be part of it, is something we’re incredibly proud of.”