Lando Norris gets long-awaited first win at 2024 Miami Grand Prix

Lando Norris is officially a Formula 1 race winner as he came home to take the checkered flag first at the 2024 Miami Grand Prix. The McLaren driver celebrated with his signature champagne bottle spike, but this time from the top of the podium.

In a weekend utterly dominated by Red Bull’s Max Verstappen, Norris’ pace around the Miami Autodrome on Sunday was a surprise and utterly nail-biting to watch. The race turned on its head when an accident between Kevin Magnussen and Logan Sargeant forced a safety car to be deployed. Norris was one of the last drivers who hadn’t made a pit stop at that point and was leading the race. He came back out with four fresh, hard-compound tires, still in the lead, and never looked back.

Max Verstappen came in second place and challenged Norris on the restart, but never got close enough the remainder of the race. Charles Leclerc took third place, finishing just a couple seconds behind Max.

Logan Sargeant was the only DNF of the day, as he was victim to the incident with Magnussen. Lewis Hamilton came home in sixth but was close to Sergio Perez (and quite pleased about it) right at end of the race. Meanwhile, Daniel Ricciardo's magical weekend came to an end as his teammate Yuki Tsunoda outperformed him by a wide margin in the race, coming in seventh to Ricciardo's 15th.

In a press conference with media, Norris said "it felt incredible" at the top step of the podium. "Just happiness, me smiling, which is not always the case, but I dream of these days sometimes, and you never know when they're going to come toward you, but today was that day," Norris said.

His closest competitors, Verstappen and Leclerc were both happy for Norris getting his first victory, too.

"I think it was a long time coming, and I'm very happy to be beaten by Lando today," Verstappen said. "He definitely deserved it and was miles faster in the end."

"I'm just really happy for Lando," Leclerc started. "He needs to enjoy it as much as possible, and tonight will be a good night."

On the topic of celebrations, when queried, Norris made it clear that celebrations are in order.

"I'm not going to sleep," Norris laughs. "I'm going all the way. There might be more than just a scratch on my nose tomorrow," Norris said in reference to his nose injury sustained while partying in Amsterdam last week.