Abu Dhabi Grand Prix Champion's Press Conference

Featuring Drivers' Champion Lando Norris (McLaren).

LN: I just laugh. It's tough to describe. It's tough to put in words. I mean, I just want to go and spend some time with my team, my engineers, my mom and my dad. I don't know what I'm going to say. So much goes into achieving what we've achieved today. You know, from all those years ago when I saw Formula 1 on the TV, when I saw a go-kart for the first time – my memories the last couple laps were really just that. They took me back to where it all started because I wouldn't be here without my parents and the sacrifice they've done. My brother and my sisters, the amount of times they text me and I don't get back to them. You know, just everything. Everything that leads into achieving what we all achieved today. And this is not my world championship. This is ours. This is one where I get to say, "Thank you, mom," and "Thank you, dad." They're the ones who sacrificed so much to let me be the lucky boy that I am today – to live my dream, to do what I have loved doing since I was a kid, driving that go-kart for the first time at home. The best memories ever, you know. And so much goes into it every year. And 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. They might have felt like it was worth it after getting to Formula 1 or getting the first win in Miami. But, you know, the thing that makes me smile every day is making my parents proud, making my friends proud, the people who support me so much through the plenty of tough times I've had this year, celebrate the good times that I've had this year. But I feel like I finally get something to say thank you – not just in words, but in terms of the volume of a championship – that they are just as much a part of as I feel like I go out on track and perform. They're with me through every step of the way. And today, I just get to say thank you to all of them. I get to make them smile. And that’s all I really want in my life is all of them to be happy and to get to celebrate. And that’s what I managed to do for them all today.

LN: I've had a lot of tough moments in the beginning of the season. I had great moments – winning the first race in Australia certainly gave me a big boost. But quite quickly, I had not the best run of results, and Oscar did an incredible job, was consistently ahead of me. It got tricky at times. I think at the end of the day, it shows that consistency over a year is what helps achieve what we've achieved today. But those tricky moments, like everyone says, you’ve got to learn from them, acknowledge them, understand them. I've had to go above and beyond in terms of expanding my group, the people I work with on the track, and more so off the track. The amount of people that I have in my corner – not from McLaren but externally: my friends, my family, my coaches, people that help me think in better ways and perform in better ways. So many people allowed me to go out and be more calm and almost try and not acknowledge the pressure or just perform under pressure and have the second half of the season that I had. If I look back on it, my first half of the season – not the most impressive. Certainly, times I made some mistakes, made some bad judgments. I made my errors, as I'm sure every driver would admit to. But how I managed to turn all of that and have the second half of the season that I had is what makes me very proud – that I've been able to prove myself wrong.

There were doubts I had in the beginning of the year, and I proved myself wrong. And that's something that makes me very happy. Like I said, this was a moment that I got to thank them all for that – all their hard work, all the stuff that other people do for me. This is my way of saying thank you. But I did feel calm. I felt calm until three corners to go. I started to shake a little bit. I got to think of all those incredible memories very quickly, and then I got to see the team when I went over the line. And this is a moment that I'll never forget.

LN: That I'll find out. You know, I feel proud but not because I'm gonna wake up tomorrow and go, "I beat everyone." I'm not proud because I get to just say I'm a world champion. I'm proud because I feel like I made a lot of other people happy. I made my engineer Will, Jarv as well – they don’t get to see their family much. They've seen me grow up more than they've seen their own kids grow up. I feel bad about that. But the fact that they put so much effort into making me perform and helping us... I'm shaking. Helping us all perform. The fact I get to make them feel like their time has been, hopefully, a little bit worth it—that's what makes me so happy. I hope it doesn’t change anything I do, the way I think, the way I do things. I believe I won the championship this year my way – by being a fair driver, by trying to be an honest driver. At times, could I have been more aggressive and got off the brakes and had a few people over? I certainly could have done, and maybe I would need to do more of that in the future. But did I need to do it this year? Is that the way I want to go racing? Is that me? It's not. And I'm sure if you compare me, if that’s what you wanna do, to all the champions: have I been as aggressive as them at times? No. Have I been as daring as them at times? No. But did I do just what I needed to do to win the world championship? Did I perform consistently? Did I perform when I needed to under the most pressure? Post-Zandvoort, did I come back in the way I had to? Did I have three, four weekends of great results? I did. And I performed when I needed to perform to win the World Championship this season. And in the end, that’s what I needed to do. That’s all I needed to do. Of course, I’ll learn from everything. Like I said, moments I wish I could go back on and I feel bad for, like Montreal and things like that, I embarrassed myself. But I wish I could go back and change some things. Plenty of moments to learn from. I feel like I'm a better driver now, certainly, than I was at the beginning of the season. But everyone’s going to do it. And when I’m racing against Max, a four-time world champion, when I’m racing against Oscar, a guy who at some point in the future will probably beat me and be a world champion, I’m performing. And I’m having to perform against the best in the world. And I look forward to plenty more times like that. And I need to understand what I can do better, how can I do better, how can I perform more consistently against them and learn from them? And I feel like I did that this year, and I've got to do that even more next year if I want to retain what we've been able to achieve this year.

LN: I honestly would just want to say no. It didn’t allow me to relax. Like, when I see 34 points against a guy who's in the same car, who's doing an incredible job, who I know is incredibly quick, that didn’t fill me with confidence. And it wasn’t like, "I got nothing to lose now, I can just go." I felt like I was trying to do everything I could before, and I continued to try and do everything I could after. But I just had to step up what I was doing away from the track. Like I said before, the people I was working with, I added more people to that group. I had to work harder both on the simulator and here at track. I had to change my approaches. I had to change my... yeah, like a lot of people do. I had to dig deep and try and understand more things quicker and in a more advanced way than I ever have before. That’s what gave me the advantage I had – not, "Oh, the pressure’s off, I can go and do what I’d like to do." It was really the opposite. I was like, "Oh, shoot. I’m quite a long way behind against a pretty freaking fast driver, and I’ve got to step it up." And I got to be more myself because of external factors—working with more professionals in different areas to unlock more of my ability. And I think when you saw that, I had that run of great results, which is ultimately what got me the championship in the end.

LN: Look. I hate ever having to try and compare myself to other people. This is all for you guys to decide whether someone’s better than someone else or not. All I try and do every weekend is the best of what I can. But then you decide he’s better than him, or he’s got a worse car and he’s doing better – write what you like, decide what you like. I certainly feel like at moments I've driven better than I feel like other people can. And I feel like I drove at a level I don't think other people can match. But have I also made my mistakes? Have I made more mistakes than other people at times? Yes. Is there stuff Max could do better at times than me? Yes. Do I believe he's unbeatable? No. But you also don’t know, do you? It’s hard to know. Like, they also struggled with the car in the mid part of the season. They’ve had an incredible second half of the season. They took advantage of the fact we had two of us fighting for a world championship. He really made the most of that and Max drove like he is a four-time world champion. And I’m very happy that I got to race against him and try to prove myself against him. Whether then you want to write whatever you want to write, against him, against me, or whatever it is, feel free. But I’m not here—honestly, like I said at the beginning—my motivation is not here to prove I’m better than someone else. That’s not what makes me happy. I’m not goping to wake up tomorrow and go, "I’m so happy because I beat Max." I honestly, deep down, don’t care about that. I don’t care if every article is, "Do you think he’s better than me?" or "Oscar’s better," or whatever it is. Doesn’t matter. I have no interest in that. I’ve just done what I’ve needed to do to win the world championship. That’s it. And 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 gonna be the truth. It’s gonna 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.

LN: Honestly, I can’t remember the exact time things started. Certainly levelled up a lot more through the halfway point – around Zandvoort time – but it definitely started prior to that.

It started after I had that kind of bad run in race two, three, four, five, six, that kind of area. Or certainly when it was like, "Alright, my way is not working. I’ve got to understand things differently. I’ve got to speak to more people. I've got to understand what I'm thinking, why I’m thinking it. Why am I doing this? Why am I getting tense in qualifying? Why am I making the decisions that I’m making?" Whatever it may be. Certainly, the bad run of results and lack of performance—not speed, because I think the speed’s always there—but lack of putting things together when I had the capability of putting things together, allowed or opened up the doors to go and understand: "Okay, I need to do more than just try again next weekend. I need to try and understand things on a deeper level." Mentally. That opened up understanding myself more, understanding things more at a championship level. That’s the level I’ve got to be at. They are world champions. And yes, certainly the struggles turned into strength. So I would say, if I didn’t have those struggles at the beginning and then had the weakness at the end, would I have caught on to those things as quickly? Probably not. So I was thankful that I had some of the tough moments early on and managed to turn them around. When I got in that kind of good rhythm in the last three months, almost when there’s been more pressure than ever, was almost when I felt most comfortable and most confident into qualifying, you know, I could go from chatting to my engineers and having a fun time with my mechanics to going out and getting pole a few minutes later. So, yeah, the struggle was at the beginning really allowed me to unlock my potential later on.

LN: Thank you. End of. Look, again, that’s one of the things that makes me most proud. 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. Not trying to be as aggressive as Max or as forceful as other champions might have been in the past – whatever it may be. I’m happy. I just won it my way. I’m happy I could go out and be myself and win it Lando’s way, as Andrea would tell me. That certainly makes me happy. Like I said at the beginning, could I have gone out and been more of that person you probably want me to be at times? I could have done. I would have been less proud about it in some ways. So, that’s why I’m very happy with myself. I kept my cool, I kept to myself, I kept the focus on myself, and I got the most out of how I am. And I know at times I say some stupid things, and I say some things about Max, or I might have said some things at times in the past that everyone talks about, about Lewis. Some things I regret and I wish I could take back and never have come out my mouth. But I honestly believe I give more respect to anyone else than anyone else. I give more respect to Oscar. I give more respect to Max. I try and give as much respect as I can to Lewis—he’s seven-time world champion. He’s the best driver—you compare him to Schumacher—the best driver that’s ever been in Formula 1. I’m not even close to that. I might never be. I dream of those kind of things. I dreamed of today, and I’ve managed to achieve one of seven, comparing to him. And do I regret some of the comments I might have said in cooldown rooms or whatever it is? Yes. But a lot of those are in the heat of the moment. And by the time I’ve said it, I’ve gone, "Why the hell did I just say that?" So, I try and be as genuine as I can. I try and always speak the truth. I never try and give you guys false understandings of things. If I think we’re going to win, I’m going say, "I think we’re gonna win." If I think Red Bull are going be fast or probably going to be fast, I’m going to say it. I’m trying to honestly always—I have no gain by trying to hide things from you guys. And, you know, deep down, do I really hate when you write crap about me? I do. It’s also life, and I’ve learned to live with some of those things more. And I also value that everyone has their own opinions—whether they like me or not or think someone else is better or not—like we just spoke about. What I’m happy is that I did things my way this season. I won it in my way, my style of just trying to be a good person and a good team member. And I’m proud about that. No matter what other people want to write about and say about it, no one really knows the truth apart from the people on the inside, in terms of what’s going on.

And I don’t need to listen to those things. So, as long as I know I’ve done a good job, which I have now proven to myself I have, then that’s the only thing I really need to listen to. Is now myself and my team. And that’s all I need.

LN: Hell no! It’s way more! This might be my only time—I really hope it’s not, and I am confident it’s not going be my only time of sitting here alone. It’s quite lonely here. No one else sat by my side.

But I want to enjoy this moment because not many people ever will get to experience what I’ve managed to experience today. The effect, the feeling it’s had on other people, that makes me so happy. So I’m going to celebrate. Well. My friends, I really hope they’ve all had many drinks already because I want to go and party with them, because this is more about them than it is about me.

My mechanics, my engineers, I mean, crap, we got a test on Tuesday morning, but yeah. I know certainly moments through the race today where I was like, "Okay, Tsunoda’s up next." And we knew from before that Tsunoda might try and do it—try and hold me up and make my life difficult like Perez did to Lewis just a few seasons ago. So a lot of that was in our script and estimations already. But I managed to get through pretty quickly. And it was a bit close. It got pretty close. And it’s crazy thinking about it, because they do think about it straight away. You're like, "Damn, if that was five centimetres closer—it’s over." And that’s when you get to the end of the race—three laps to go, four laps to go—I stopped taking any kerbs because I’m like, if that just makes one piece of the car undo itself, it’s over. That kind of thing. So, I’m like, "Should I go for fastest lap on the last lap? Maybe." It’s not worth it. A lot of those things go through your head. I had to make some fairly decisive overtakes and commit to a few things. But again, the championship was not won today. It was won by my consistency this year, by my great races over the last four months or so. It could have been an easier race. It also could have been a harder race. But sometimes, yeah—it was just another race on the calendar for me. It was a fun race, but I tried to really treat it as, "Okay, it’s just another race today," like I said, and tried to stay calm through it, which I feel like I did, and tried to just maximise my result.