ABU DHABI: Lando Norris clinched McLaren’s first team title in 26 years on Sunday when he drove to a calm and accomplished victory ahead of two chasing Ferraris at the season-closing Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.
On an evening of stirring emotions under floodlights at the Yas Marina Circuit, as seven-time champion Lewis Hamilton drove from 16th to fourth in his final race at Mercedes, Norris was the embodiment of cool as he raced from his eighth pole position to his fourth career win.
“It feels incredible,” said the driver born in 1999, one year after McLaren’s last constructors’ crown.
“Not for myself, but for the whole team. The team has done an amazing job this year to come from where we were at the beginning. I am so proud of everyone.
“It has been a lovely journey and so to end the season like this is perfect. A congrats and big thank you to everyone at McLaren.”
His team boss Zak Brown, who has generated energy and enthusiasm at English-based McLaren, said: “I love everyone in Woking. What a team effort! Amazing, but that was stressful. The worst two hours of my life!“
McLaren won their title by 14 points from Ferrari whose challenge was finally subdued on a night of accidents, penalties and tantrums.
McLaren ended the season on 666 points ahead of Ferrari on 652 and Red Bull on 589. Mercedes finished fourth on 468 and Aston Martin were fifth with 94.
“Papaya on top!” said Norris on his slowdown lap in his orange-yellow car.
“Congrats to everyone. Incredible. So proud of you all. You all deserve this. It’s been a special one. Next year is going to be my year too.”
The 25-year-old Briton came home 5.832 seconds ahead of Carlos Sainz and his Ferrari team-mate Charles Leclerc to end the Italian outfit’s hopes of a first title since 2008.
McLaren had not won the teams’ title since 1998, started the day with a lead of 21 points and a front row lockout, but suffered an early setback when Oscar Piastri was sent spinning in a clash with newly-crowned four-time champion Max Verstappen of Red Bull at the first corner.
This encouraged Ferrari and they mounted a defiant if vain bid for glory, to finish second and third ahead of Hamilton, who passed team-mate George Russell on the final lap.
“It’s a bitter-sweet feeling today,” said Sainz, who will join Williams next year when his Ferrari seat is taken by Hamilton.
“P2 was the maximum we could do today given the pace of Lando in the McLaren. I gave it everything.”
Team-mate Leclerc, who started 19th on he grid, said: “I knew I had to be aggressive on lap one to gain as many places as possible to gain positions and be in a good position for the rest of the race. This was achieved. but we were just too far back to do anything more for the rest of the race.”
Russell came home fifth ahead of Verstappen, who was handed a 10 second penalty crashing into Piastri.
Hamilton, 39, marked the end of his 12 years at Mercedes with a rousing and memorable drive from his record 246th start with the team and spun his car in a series of ‘donuts’ to celebrate at the end.
“Lewis, that was the drive of a world champion,” said team chief Toto Wolff as the crowd chanted “Lewis, Lewis.”
“What started out as a leap of faith, we turned it into making history,” said Hamilton to his race engineer Peter ‘Bono’ Bonnington.
Norris made a clean start from his eighth pole of the year to lead into Turn One where Verstappen attacked Piastri on the inside and made contact to send both spinning.
Verstappen’s ‘dive bomb’ drew the comment “yep, move of a world champion there” from Piastri on McLaren team radio.
Piastri rejoined in 20th and last, but Verstappen squeezed back into 11th as team-mate Sergio Perez’s miserable season concluded with a spin out after contact with Valtteri Bottas’s Sauber.
After serving his penalty Verstappen asked with sarcastic venom: “Could we ask for 20 seconds? Stupid idiots.”
With 20 laps to go, Hamilton’s race engineer Bonnington, for the final time, told his driver “Lewis, it’s hammer time.” Hamilton asked for the gap to third and was told 14 seconds. “You can do it,” chimed in his team chief Wolff before Hamilton overtook Gasly for fifth.
At the front, Norris was the embodiment of cool, 5.9 clear of Sainz and managing his race with detached precision.
Lando Norris seals ‘incredible’ McLaren constructors’ crown in Abu Dhabi
https://arab.news/2kh8f
Lando Norris seals ‘incredible’ McLaren constructors’ crown in Abu Dhabi
- McLaren won their title by 14 points from Ferrari whose challenge was finally subdued on a night of accidents, penalties and tantrums
Pakistan-born Australian Khawaja, set to retire from cricket, criticizes racial stereotypes
- Usman Khawaja said he felt he was treated ‘a little bit different, even to now,’ because of his Pakistan and Muslim background
- Khawaja was criticized in the days leading up to the Perth match for golfing twice, not taking part in an optional training session
Veteran Australia batter Usman Khawaja has announced he will retire from international cricket after the fifth Ashes test beginning Sunday at the Sydney Cricket Ground.
He didn’t go quietly.
The Pakistan-born Khawaja, who was the first Muslim to play for Australia, used his retirement announcement Friday to criticize the “racial” stereotyping he experienced during his career.
It will be the 39-year-old Khawaja’s 88th and final test — played at the ground where he began his first-class career. Khawaja scored his first Ashes century at the SCG with 171 against England in 2018.
It was also at that the SCG where he revived his career at age 35, scoring two centuries against England. That prompted one of the great late-career revivals, as Khawaja hit seven centuries in his next two years back in the side.
But Khawaja’s position had come under scrutiny and criticism this season after being unable to open in the first Ashes test in Perth due to back spasms and then missing the Brisbane test with the injury.
He was then initially left out in Adelaide until Steve Smith’s vertigo allowed Khawaja to return, before an 82 in the first innings there ensured he would stay in the side for the fourth test in Melbourne. Australia, with a 3-1 lead going into the fifth test, has retained the Ashes.
Khawaja said he felt he was treated “a little bit different, even to now,” because of his Pakistan and Muslim background.
“Different in the way I’ve been treated, different in how things have happened,” he said at a media conference in Sydney. “I had back spasms, it was something I couldn’t control. The way the media and the past players came out and attacked me . . . I copped it for about five days straight. Everyone was piling in.
“Once the racial stereotypes came in, of me being lazy, it was things I’ve dealt with my whole life. Pakistani, West Indian, colored players...we’re selfish, we only care about ourselves, we don’t care about the team, we don’t train hard enough.”
Khawaja was criticized in the days leading up to the Perth match for golfing twice and not taking part in an optional training session. Some commentators suggested the golf might have been responsible for his back issues.
“I can give you countless number of guys who have played golf the day before a match and have been injured, but you guys haven’t said a thing,” Khawaja told the assembled media.
“I can give you even more examples of guys who have had 15 schooners (large glasses of beer) the night before a game and have then been injured, but no one said a word because they were just being ‘Aussie larrikins,’ they were just being lads. But when I get injured, everyone went at my credibility and who I am as a person.”
Khawaja said he knew the end of his career was imminent.
“I guess moving into this series, I had an inkling this would be the last series,” he said. “I’m glad I can go out on my own terms.”
Khawaja has scored 6,206 runs at an average of 43.49 in his 87 tests with 16 centuries and 28 half-centuries.
“Usman has made a huge contribution to Australian cricket both through his outstanding achievements as one of our most stylish and resilient batters . . . and off field, particularly through the Usman Khawaja Foundation,” Cricket Australia chief executive Todd Greenberg said in a statement.
“Usman has been one of Australia’s most reliable opening batters and testament to his success was him being named ICC test cricketer of the year the same season that Australia won the World Test Championship (in 2023).”
Khawaja said his No. 1 emotion on announcing his retirement was “contentment.”
“I’m very lucky to have played so many games for Australia the way I have,” Khawaja said. “I hope I have inspired people along the way.”
