By Alan Baldwin
ABU DHABI, Dec 7 (Reuters) – In the end, Lando Norris won the Formula One championship his way.
The McLaren driver finished third, behind Red Bull’s winner and title rival Max Verstappen and teammate Oscar Piastri, in the season-ending race in Abu Dhabi but that was only part of the story.
“I believe I won the championship this year my way — by being a fair driver, by trying to be an honest driver,” the Briton told reporters in a champion’s news conference before the serious partying started.
Norris accepted other champions had been more aggressive, more daring, but he had done what he needed to do and had performed under pressure.
“My motivation is not here to prove I’m better than someone else. That’s not what makes me happy,” he explained. “I’m not going to wake up tomorrow and go, “I’m so happy because I beat Max.” I honestly, deep down, don’t care about that.
“I made my people happy. That’s all I really care about at the end of the day. I’m not going to wake up happy tomorrow because I can just go and say to myself, “I’m world champion.” It might make me smile, but it’s not going to be the truth.
“It’s going to be ‘My mom’s happy. My dad’s happy. My sisters are happy. My brother’s happy. My friends are happy.’ And that’s all I need in my life.”
MEMORIES OF PAST SACRIFICES
Calm until the final few laps, Norris said his mind filled with memories of childhood and sacrifices made and he “started to shake a little bit”.
By the time he crossed the line and the team radio exploded with congratulations from the pitwall, he was in tears with a wobbly voice and the extent of his emotion broadcast over the airwaves.
“So much goes into achieving what we’ve achieved today,” he said, recalling his early days watching Formula One on television and seeing a go-kart for the first time.
“This is not my world championship. This is ours. This is one where I get to say, “Thank you, mom,” and “Thank you, dad.
“For the first time, I really get to say thank you to them, to my parents, to my family. And I get to really make them feel like everything they did was worth it.”
Norris said he had also to dig deep into his own resources, fighting back from mistakes and bad judgements in a rollercoaster season that at one point saw him 34 points behind Piastri after winning the opening round.
As the Australian threatened to run away with the championship, he questioned his way of working and why he was making the decisions he did. In doing so, he managed to make the struggles turn into strength.
Critics suggested he could not win a championship by wearing his heart on his sleeve, by being so laceratingly self-critical, but he proved them wrong.
“I feel like I have just managed to win it the way I wanted to win it, which was not by being someone I’m not,” said Norris, who nonetheless regretted some of the things he had said and done along the way.
“I’m happy I could go out and be myself and win it Lando’s way, as (team boss) Andrea (Stella) would tell me. I kept my cool, I kept to myself, I kept the focus on myself, and I got the most out of how I am.”
(Reporting by Alan Baldwin, editing by Pritha Sarkar)
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