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The first thing that Lando sees whenever he goes home is an open blue box. Inside, perched on a small plinth, sits a full-scale replica of his first Formula 1 winner’s trophy, from the 2024 Miami Grand Prix.

“I open the door, and at the end of the little hallway, I see it,” he smiles. “Not every day, but once a month… maybe,” he adds, tongue in cheek, hinting at how little time he’s actually able to spend at home during the F1 season.

As tradition dictates, the original trophy lives in a display cabinet on the Boulevard at our Woking-based factory, but each driver receives an official replica. “There’s only one box, though,” he says.

“The actual trophy comes in a box, and I have that box. A nice, big, bright blue box.”

An emotional milestone

Sitting on a cream sofa at the Hilton in Miami, Lando has joined us to look back on his first victory with the team. Watching the footage back he cannot help but smile as he sees himself cross the line.

“I think that made it so special was that I had been with McLaren for a while, it was my sixth season in Formula 1, but I had been with McLaren for eight years, and we had been through a lot together - a lot of ups and downs,” he shares.

“Daniel had won in Monza, and I was second, so I had gotten close. It felt like our first win as a team: my mechanics, and my engineers, Will and Jarv - we had finally won together, rather than me personally.”

 

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Never has there been such a swell of support for one driver from the rest of the field after a victory. Almost the entire grid congratulated him on the milestone, whether in person or on social media. Over six seasons, he had become one of F1’s most popular characters, both in the grandstands and the paddock.

“I got a lot of messages, probably some I still haven’t got back to,” he laughs. “The reaction I got from everyone was amazing, not just the fans, but people outside of Formula 1, people who don’t watch Formula 1.”

The painful close calls

The images of Lando leaping into the team’s arms in parc fermé following the win have become iconic and will doubtlessly go down in F1 folklore, but there were many reasons why his first win was an emotional one, not solely his long-standing connection with the team.

Having dreamt of becoming a Formula 1 race winner since first setting foot in a go-kart as a seven-year-old at the Clay Pigeon Kart Track in Dorchester, Lando had come close on multiple occasions - not just in the 2021 Italian Grand Prix, but also two weeks later at the Russian Grand Prix.

In Sochi, he had initially relished in the wet conditions he’s now renowned for, taking Pole, but then spun from first in the closing stages of the race, having decided not to change from Mediums to Intermediates when rain started coming down.

It was a gut-wrenching moment, and would be two years before he got another chance at victory, when he went close in the British and Singapore Grands Prix in 2023. However, he narrowly missed out on both occasions and couldn’t be certain when his next opportunity would be.

How his breakthrough unfolded  

With many of our rivals having enjoyed a strong end to 2023 and start to 2024, Lando’s next shot would come nearly eight months later in Round 6 of the new season. A sizeable upgrade, installed ahead of Miami, had propelled us back into contention for a win.

As had been the case with Lando’s previous near misses, it would prove to be far from simple. The MCL38 has shown strong pace through Practice and in Sprint Qualifying, but Lando was taken out at the first corner in the Sprint. It was a timely reminder of how quickly things can go wrong, with his race ending before it had even begun.

Lando’s retirement, combined with those around us improving in Qualifying on the Saturday, lessened expectations externally. But internally, this was more in keeping with our aims heading into the weekend. Even with the upgrade installed, Miami wasn’t a track that would play to that version of the MCL39’s ultimate strengths on paper - we believed we would be competitive, but on par with our rivals, rather than ahead of them.

So, when Lando Qualified fifth, the team considered it a job well done and went into Sunday with confidence that we could make up a few places to the podium.

“In Practice, we were thinking, ‘ohh, we’re actually quite quick,’ so, there was some hope that we could achieve something good,” Lando says.

The early signs from the Miami upgrade had also taken some of the pressure off. During Lando’s first five seasons with the team, it felt more costly whenever a win got away from us, as we didn’t know when that chance would arise again.

“That weekend, we felt like something was coming – if it didn’t happen in Miami, it would happen sooner or later,” Lando says. “The team was on the up, and morale was on the up. The car felt better, and we were more competitive. If it didn’t happen in Miami, it was going to come at some point.”

The first two Grands Prix in Miami hadn’t been the most thrilling of races. The circuit’s limited overtaking opportunities and Red Bull’s dominance had seen Max Verstappen win both at a canter.

2024 looked like being more of the same. Verstappen was on Pole again and had won all five of the opening races, but an accident at the start, caused by Sergio Perez, turned the race on its head. The collision handed Oscar an advantage, seeing the Australian jump from sixth to second, but it compromised Lando, demoting him to sixth, as he only narrowly avoided getting caught up in the incident.

From here, he opted to play the long game and watched the race unfold before him.

“The easy answer for ‘when did I feel like we could win?’ was when the Safety Car came out,” he says, watching the race highlights back on his phone. “The pace was very strong, and I had gone long with the strategy, which is what opened up this opportunity.

“That was our plan from the beginning – to see how far we could get into the race and then see if there was a Virtual Safety Car or a Safety Car we could take advantage of. That’s what we got, which happens in a lot of races. Everybody else boxed quite a bit earlier, whereas our pace was strong, and that allowed us to stay out longer.

“As soon as the Safety Car came out, I knew. From there, I knew that we were going to win the race. Our pace was great, all I needed was a good restart. There were still quite a few laps to go at that point, so I knew anything could happen, but I was confident in our pace.

“I don’t think it becomes real until you cross the line. You are the first one to see the Chequered Flag – it had been a while since I was the first one to see the Chequered Flag – and you see all of the mechanics lined up on the pit wall. That is when you feel everything. Before then, it’s all just thoughts.

“It was a big moment, not simply because it was a win, but because it gave us the belief that we could win a race against our biggest competitors.

“And it gave McLaren fans some hope again. It was a cool feeling to play a part in that.”

A new era in full swing

For McLaren fans, “hope” had been in short supply. The team hadn’t won a Constructors’ Championship since 1998, and only had one Grand Prix victory in 12 years.

This period featured some of the lowest Championship finishes in our history, including ninth in 2015 and 2017, but under Zak Brown’s leadership, the green shoots of recovery were beginning to emerge. After a competitive end to 2023, our victory in Miami proved that this new iteration of McLaren was the real deal.

“It was the start of what became a pretty amazing season,” Lando says.

Confidence swelled, and more wins followed. Our ambitions shifted, and the team outgrew the initial aim of finishing in the top three. “We would've been happy with second or a third. Now we’re not,” Lando reiterates.

In Miami last year, Lando had drawn level with Lewis Hamilton for most starts for the McLaren Formula 1 Team. He’s now third, three races off Jenson Button, and tops the table for most points scored, but he’s also now rising the charts for Grand Prix wins, podiums and Poles, while chasing what would be his first Championship.

Even though the targets have changed, the way he and the team operate hasn’t.

“Everything has improved, and we work better as a team, but the rest is the same,” he says. “It's the same mentality and the same approach to everything. It’s just that before it was ‘how can we get on the podium today’, and now it’s ‘how can we win the race?’ And that’s for all the correct reasons - nothing else needed to change.”

 

Re-live the moment Lando Norris became the 114th Grand Prix winner in Formula 1 history 🏁#F1 #MiamiGP pic.twitter.com/iPpsziHkB0

— Formula 1 (@F1) May 5, 2024

Even as he’s won more races and ticked off more accomplishments, his first victory hasn’t taken on any less significance.

“The emotions that come to mind? Happiness, smiles, a lot of joy, and some relief. I was just happy. It was my first win and not many people get to win in Formula 1,” he smiles. “Whenever I think of racing, I still think of my first win because it's still my most memorable moment.

“It's the moment I have dreamt of the most since I was a kid. I don't think of it every day or even every month, but it's a moment that I will remember forever.”