Lando Norris’s signature celebration, slamming the base of the champagne bottle on the podium floor to pop the cork, went badly wrong on Sunday. The bottle shattered in his hand at Interlagos, leaving him holding only the neck, and seconds later a podium sparkler sent a shower of sparks straight into the right side of his face.
He walked off unhurt. The only verdict that mattered arrived in a short video shared by McLaren.
“My hand is fine from the champagne bottle, the champagne bottle is not fine. Otherwise, an amazing weekend with a pole and a win.”
Team principal Andrea Stella had not spoken to his driver when he met post-race media in Sao Paulo, but said, as reported by PlanetF1, that the glass had already partially given way before the pyrotechnics made things worse.
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“I think the bottle didn’t go well either because he seemed like he had only the upper part, but I think he was just surprised by the pyro when he was going for the bottle.”
The same celebration has backfired before, destroying Max Verstappen’s handmade porcelain winner’s trophy at the 2023 Hungarian Grand Prix.
From a poor start to 14.5 seconds clear
The race itself was a recovery job. Norris converted pole but briefly lost the lead off the line to Andrea Kimi Antonelli, before reclaiming it when the newly crowned world champion spun off at the first corner.
He then pulled clear through changing conditions to win by 14.5 seconds over Max Verstappen. Isack Hadjar completed the podium in a Red Bull.
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It was Norris’s third win of the season. The 25 points lifted him to 246 overall, three behind Charles Leclerc in the fight for fifth in the Drivers’ Championship. Antonelli, who sealed the title in Mexico City, leads Verstappen by 111 points with three rounds to come.
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