Daniel Ricciardo has shared a touching moment with his former teammate Lando Norris, after a strategic gamble lucked the young Brit into his maiden F1 victory in the Miami Grand Prix.
Ricciardo and Norris spent two seasons as teammates at McLaren in 2021 and 2022, and have remained friends off-track.
When Ricciardo won the 2021 Italian Grand Prix – the team’s most recent prior victory – Norris finished right behind him in second.
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Cameras captured the moment the Aussie wrapped Norris up in a bear hug after the race.
Norris started fifth and was running fourth at the start of the pitstop cycle. Norris’ strategy was to have him run far longer than those who were running ahead of him in the hopes of getting a safety car.
When the Williams of home-town hero Logan Sargeant and the Haas of Kevin Magnussen came together on lap 28, he got his wish.
Norris at that point had a 12-second lead over Max Verstappen. The safety car slowed the rest of the field down and allowed him to make his pitstop and keep the lead.
Norris survived a brief challenge from Verstappen on the restart, but then drove calmly to eventually win by more than seven seconds.
“Oh f—, I love you all. We did it,” he said over team radio.
“I guess that’s how it’s done. I’m so happy.”
He also dedicated the win to his grandmother, and the team’s late sporting director Gil de Ferran.
The win came with former US president Donald Trump watching on from the McLaren garage.
Verstappen and Norris are close friends off the track. Verstappen pulled up alongside Norris to congratulate him on the cool-down lap back to the pits.
Norris is also a popular figure in the pitlane, and was congratulated after the race by most of the grid. Ferrari team principal Frederic Vasseur at one point even joined in the McLaren celebrations.
The win came in his 110th race.
But while the safety car was a blessing for Norris, it appeared to cost Ricciardo any chance of a strong result.
His RB team had elected to start him on the hardest of the three compounds, which would have allowed him to drive further into the race before making his pit stop. The theory is he would have been on a quicker tyre late in the race to make up places.
But the safety car meant those rivals were also able to make a stop and stay ahead, ruining Ricciardo’s strategy. Teammate Yuki Tsunoda finished seventh, and now sits 10th in the drivers standings. Ricciardo is 14th.
The F1 season continues with the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix at the Imola track on May 19, only a fortnight after the 30th anniversary of Ayrton Senna’s death at the same venue.