Donald Trump, in his famous red cap, would be the last man to believe he couldn’t make the Formula One Championship great again.
It was his first known visit to the world’s biggest series and he was a guest of McLaren. He walked in there, clenched his fists and wished them luck before the 57 laps began. And he tried to spread a little self-confidence to his hosts.
The papaya man visiting the papaya team.
And, like magic, Lando Norris won his first race on a sunny day in Miami. He surely had a bit of luck, with the arrival of the safety car. But for Norris, a 24-year-old runner from Glastonbury, Somerset, a huge relief came from his thin shoulders as he became the 21st British winner.
He carried with him the unwanted label of 14 podiums without a victory, more than anyone in history, and it felt like it was weighing on him. He is more introspective than his cheerful public demeanor suggests and made him for Netflix.
Lando Norris achieved his first victory in Formula One at the Miami Grand Prix
The British pilot is congratulated by former President Donald Trump after his victory
The McLaren driver maintained his composure against top favorite Max Verstappen (left)
His big opportunity came on lap 28, almost exactly halfway through the race.
This was due to Haas’ Kevin Magnussen kicking Williams’ Logan Sargeant into the wall. Sargeant, of Fort Lauderdale, was unlucky. In any case, the cessation of racing allowed Norris a free stop. He gave him the opportunity to cling to a hitherto misleading “clue,” because he still hadn’t stopped and everyone else had.
Pretty. But who was in the car behind him? None other than his best partner on the grid, Max Verstappen, the world champion, the machine that cannot be defeated (not unless its engine explodes).
Privately, Norris calls Verstappen the best driver the sport has ever known. He believes he has all the attributes to succeed at the top, so having the Dutchman in a Red Bull sizzling in his rear-view mirror when the safety car came in was nothing like a leisurely Sunday drive.
The wind must have been against him. Now everything he had expected before and after his 2021 Melbourne debut – a pimply teenager pulling nervously at his finger joints as he spoke – flashed through his mind.
Could you stay calm? The first tests were “yes.” It was shod with newer tires, obviously, but with the same hard compounds. He immediately set the fastest lap and kept moving forward, while Verstappen struggled. He made his complaints known on the radio. There were thirteen laps left and he had built a four-second lead.
Norris is showered with champagne by Verstappen and Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc (right)
With his victory in sunny Miami, the 24-year-old became the 21st British F1 winner.
Maybe it was written in the stars. Verstappen, normally as dominant as you can imagine, had managed to run into a bollard early on.
The triple world champion went off the track at turn 15 a third of the way through and collected the red and white cone. But by now one would be thinking that nothing (plastic, human or alien) could stop the Dutchman as he routinely dominates everything that comes his way.
The fact that Norris won was a testament to his talent and built on his impressive performance, perhaps his most complete in China a fortnight ago, when he finished runner-up.
All this Norris joy had seemed like a distant fantasy in the early stages. Verstappen had taken the lead without any problems, keeping McLaren’s Oscar Piastri within three seconds of him in the scorching Florida heat. But Verstappen wasn’t pulling away, actually, a sign of what was to come.
I don’t know if you would call this career ostentatious. He’s too bold for that. Which was a perfect place for the politician who could be elected the next leader of the free world while he was inside a prison cell.
On Monday, Norris’ newest big fan will be in a New York court fighting charges that he falsified documents to cover up money he gave to a former adult film actress and Playboy model to keep her quiet. However, on Sunday it was the main attraction even among the celebrities who attended (and those who were left out, perhaps because of them).
With his race, Norris achieved McLaren’s first victory in almost three years.
Verstappen, normally as dominant as you can imagine, had managed to hit a bollard early on.
Donald Trump arrived at the Miami Grand Prix and was flanked by heavy security measures
In a surreal scene, about two hours before the lights went out, his security men asked for a canal to be made leading from the central paddock building to the McLaren garage. Someone shouted, ‘I hope you win, Donald!’ He turned and said, “I have to do it.”
He went into the garage for about 10 minutes. He spoke to the sport’s top brass, including Formula One chief executive Stefano Domenicali and FIA president Mohammed ben Sulayem. He was at McLaren at the request of the team’s majority owners, Bahrain’s sovereign wealth fund led by the kingdom’s Crown Prince Salman.
After the conversation, Trump followed the same routine among the crowd. An OnlyFans model, whose skimpy outfit left little to the imagination, took a selfie with the presumptive Republican nominee. She stuck her jaw out and left followed by her security team.
This week he hadn’t gotten his way at all. A billionaire friend, Steven Witkoff, had tried to organize a fundraiser at the track. The idea was to charge attendees $250,000 to attend the performance in a rooftop suite at the Paddock Club.
The organizers ruled it out.
But Trump watched from the same spot as Norris took the win, 7.6 seconds behind Verstappen, with Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc third. Norris raised both hands in the air in celebration after crossing the line.
McLaren’s colleagues, who felt they had to stress that they were not politicians in a statement after Trump’s visit, were overwhelmed. They danced in the pit lane.
Trump gestured to his supporters in the crowd as he prepared to watch the race begin.
Trump speaks with McLaren CEO Zak Brown while visiting the McLaren garage before the race.
Lewis Hamilton, McLaren’s world champion in his day, gave the thumbs up to Norris from the cockpit.
Norris screamed a noise beyond description. “We did it, Will,” he told his engineer Will Joseph. Zak Brown, the McLaren CEO who had entertained Trump in the garage, hugged everyone he could find.
“I guess that’s how it’s done,” a clearly emotional Norris chimed in, dedicating the win to his grandmother. “When I arrived today I knew it was a day of opportunity.”
Yes, it became big.