Photo by Francois Nel/Getty Images
Hide your trophies around Lando Norris
Lando Norris is becoming a menace on the track.
And on the podium as well.
Thanks to recent upgrades to the MCL60, McLaren is enjoying a strong run in the past few weeks. Rookie Oscar Piastri finished fourth in the British Grand Prix after qualifying third, and followed that with a fifth-place finish in the Hungarian Grand Prix. Norris has notched back-to-back podiums in those two races, with a pair of second-place finishes.
However, those have come at a cost.
For some valuable hardware.
As you have probably seen by now, Norris’s trademark champagne pop resulted in a shattered first-place trophy for Max Verstappen. As Norris hammered the champagne bottle down on the first-place podium in Hungary, Verstappen’s trophy tumbled down, breaking the top:
After the trophy shattered, Verstappen came over to his close friend Norris laughing about the incident, while Norris covered his face in embarrassment.
However, this is not the first time a Norris champagne pop has resulted in some hardware calamity. Watch the podium celebration from Silverstone a few weeks ago, as Norris spikes the champagne bottle on Verstappen’s first-place podium:
Then last year at the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix, where Norris finished third, another champagne pop sent a Verstappen first-place trophy tumbling:
Podium celebrations are some of the best parts of an F1 weekend, and Norris’s trademark champagne pop is in many ways a fitting way to conclude a grand prix. Plus, it is pretty cool to watch, and believe me next time I have a reason to break open a bottle of champagne, I’m busting this out myself.
With the way Norris and McLaren are performing right now, it is very likely there are some more podiums in store for him over the rest of the 2023 season.
So the other drivers might want to keep that in mind, and set their hardware to the side before they see Norris raise his arms up with a bottle in his hands.
Otherwise their hardware might be next.
