Lando Norris Winner 2024 Miami Grand Prix McLaren F1 Team MCL38 in 1:18 scale

It had to happen, didn’t it!

To those of us who have worked alongside Lando Norris for so long at McLaren – let alone his thousands of supporters across the globe – it was always going to be just a matter of time before he broke through to score his first F1 victory. But his win on his 110th F1 Grand Prix start – he’s now the driver with the joint-fourth most starts for the McLaren Formula 1 team, level with Lewis Hamilton - in Sunday’s race in Miami didn’t come easily.

Arriving at this fast but tricky track, he was buoyed by the latest upgrades to the MCL38, which the team back in Woking had worked so hard to ready and deliver ahead of schedule.

Fresh from disappointment in the Sprint race in China and then an excellent second to Max Verstappen in the Grand Prix at the Shanghai International Circuit, he had high hopes that the latest version of the car could be a strong contender in America. However, the team remained wary that the Miami International Autodrome didn’t play to its strengths, even with the upgrade installed.

Promising signs, but a tough start

After dominating SQ1 and SQ2 for the Miami Sprint race on the Medium Pirelli tyres, he found the Softs fading early in the lap in SQ3 and had to be content with ninth on the grid. Then, before the first lap was even complete, he was out, pushed into a spin in the first corner as the Aston Martins of Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll collided.

Yet he came into the track on Sunday believing it to be a day of opportunity. He had qualified a strong fifth for the Grand Prix behind Max, the Ferraris of Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz, and Sergio Perez’s Red Bull. With team-mate Oscar Piastri alongside him, he had solid back-up.

But when Perez’s car flew across the bows of the Ferraris at the start, narrowly missing the rear of Verstappen’s sister car, it was the other McLaren that was advantaged as Oscar emerged in second place behind Verstappen. Lando, down in a compromised sixth place, felt a measure of déjà vu after yet more Turn 1 drama. For the first 28 laps, it seemed that Oscar’s McLaren might be the one set for the big result.

Lando admitted that the fire of belief he’d harboured was put out “very quickly!” And that he had a flashback to the previous day’s Sprint, and China’s. “Okay, let's try to make it around Turn 1 for once,” he thought, and so opted to take things easy, knowing that on the Medium tyre, he had good pace. He settled down for the long game, running sixth behind Perez for the whole of the first stint, but his pace at the end of it was the fastest on track. And he could still see Verstappen. “And when you can see Max, there's hope.”

You make your own luck

The World Champion pitted on the 23rd lap. He had hit a marker cone in the chicane, slightly damaging his front wing, and he changed his Medium tyres to the Hard compound to complete the race. That handed Oscar the lead, while Leclerc had already pitted on Lap 18.

Oscar and pursuer Sainz both pitted on Lap 27, but then the Safety Car was deployed a lap later as Kevin Magnussen and Logan Sargeant collided into Turn 3. Having so often failed to enjoy the rub of the green when it comes to the Safety Car, Lando’s luck was in, but it would require an almighty effort to see it out.

He made his stop on Lap 29, rejoining ahead of Verstappen, but the rolling restart was tricky when racing resumed on Lap 33.

For a few moments, things were tense. He hadn’t done many restarts of late from the front of a race, and admitted he was a bit rusty, but as he defended his lead going into Turn 1, he believed he had the pace. He remained watchful just in case Verstappen suddenly got his tyres switched on, but as he kept pushing, it became clear that the Red Bull was struggling. His upgraded MCL38, however, was working perfectly. The pace in the first stint had been great. Now, he just needed to focus and make the most of running in clean air.

No more ‘Lando No-Wins’

“Oooooh! Lando No-wins, ha?! Ha! I guess that’s how it’s done,” laughed Lando on team radio after crossing the line.”

With third place in Australia, he had beaten Nick Heidfeld’s record of 13 podiums without a win – not something to savour – and second place in China had been his 15th.

They never had a negative impact on him, but Lando does say he took great pleasure in proving the 'Lando No-Wins' internet jibes wrong. Lap after lap in Miami, he was the man dictating the pace in precisely the manner the world was used to seeing Verstappen do, and he had always believed he could. This time, it was the Dutchman getting left behind. When Lando was the first man to drive beneath the Chequered Flag after 57 laps, he did so 7.6s sooner than the World Championship leader. Some feat, but his potential to do just that has been clear for a long time.“As much as a lot of people doubted that I was going to be able to put it together and win a race, I wasn't worried”

Right from the moment he first tested an F1 car for McLaren, back in Hungary in 2017, and then participated in six Friday morning sessions for the team alongside his F2 commitments in 2018, it was clear that despite being a rookie, he knew precisely what he was doing.

Alongside the experienced Sainz in 2019, he quickly made an impression, scoring his first points with sixth second time out in Bahrain and going on to attain 49 by the end of the season after another seven top-eight finishes.

He began 2020 by taking his first podium with a confident third place in Austria and finished the year with 97 points after scoring on another 12 occasions. Besides his latent speed, his consistency drew regular comment, and a fundamental calmness and maturity belied his 21 years.

It was in 2021 that he truly demonstrated the class to win. After following team-mate Daniel Ricciardo home in a McLaren 1-2 in the Italian GP at Monza, he scored his first pole next time out in Russia. After losing the lead to former team-mate Carlos Sainz, he calmly waited for the tyres on the Ferrari to go off, and then reclaimed first place. Thereafter, he resisted a strong challenge from Lewis Hamilton’s Mercedes and only lost out in the closing stages when he and the team elected to gamble that a rain shower wouldn’t develop further. When it did, he dropped to seventh. It was crushing, but never dented his self-belief, just fuelled him further.

He finished sixth in the World Championship that year, scoring four more podiums, and proved a point: in the right circumstances, he was a future race winner.

He scored a sixth podium in the 2022 Emilia Romagna GP, his consistency earning him 17 points-scoring performances, but it was the ongoing development of the McLaren MCL60 in 2023 that finally gave him the tools he needed to fight for podiums on merit and show his ability to challenge for victories. That year yielded another seven podiums, 205 points and sixth overall, as he hit the 100 Grand Prix mark in F1.

Yet, the wait for that all-elusive win went on. There was something of a near-miss in Singapore, but in reality, the Ferrari of Sainz was simply too quick to compete with on the day. Then there was the race in Qatar, in which Lando believes he had the pace to win, were it not for a mistake in quali, which saw him start from 10th but race to third.

But now, he can put his famed self-recrimination behind him. His maiden victory, and the team’s 184th, is the first of what will surely be many victories Lando delivers in style. 

Has the success lifted a weight from his shoulders?

“As much as I want to say no, it's a yes,” he admitted with a rueful laugh and the customary candour that has endeared him to so many. “To get that first victory is always incredible. And, of course, I’ve had my moments where we've been close, and I've never been able to convert it into the win. But as much as a lot of people doubted that I was going to be able to put it together and win a race, I wasn't worried.

“I've kind of been more confident than ever this year that I've got what it takes, and the team have got what it takes, and I was patient with it. I've just been doing my job and executing my races, executing my qualis, and doing what I can do best. And I knew my time was coming.

“I said it this morning. It's not often that I'm optimistic about things. But actually, all weekend, there's been something, you know? Like, already in practice, in the qualis... We've been close. And we were very good on Friday. And there was kind of that spark. And we maybe lost it a little bit into Saturday. But today, it definitely came back and turned into a little fire. It was an incredible race!”

The first of many

What nobody forgot that day in Russia in 2021, besides Lando’s brilliant performance, was how he took full responsibility for the decision not to pit just as then Team Principal Andreas Seidl was telling the world it had been a joint error. The lessons you learn the hard way are the ones you never forget, but as a team, nobody forgot Lando’s grace in the moment of his greatest career disappointment.

“Of course, it helps to be a bit more experienced but primarily it’s that we’re taking little steps all the time, so I don’t need to say a lot. I’ll say what I need to say, but that’s it. Simplicity is the key!”  

Lando lends weight to the message with his performances on track. His driving style is very calm, capable of looking after his tyres, delaying gratification and doing what he needs to do (while also indulging in a few radio gripes if it isn’t rocking his world). He tends to be his own harshest critic – but increasingly, he’s finishing races saying, “I think we got everything out of that.”  

It's taken him to the brink of victory many times. While his nearest miss was the 2021 Russian Grand Prix, where only an agonisingly-timed downpour denied him, he also racked up an impressive number of podiums. His 15th in the Chinese Grand Prix moved him level with Niki Lauda in 11th as the McLaren driver with most Grand Prix podiums. Even though none of these had been a win, it never fazed him, victory felt like a matter of time - it was a case of 'when', not 'if'. 

For sure, none of us back in Woking believe it will be his last.