"You smelly boy, I love you": Lando Norris' mother's emotional moment with the driver after he secured McLaren the title in Abu Dhabi

McLaren driver Lando Norris shared an emotional moment with his mother Cisca after he won the 2024 F1 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix and led the British team to their first Constructors Championship since 1998. The 25-year-old started the race in pole position alongside his teammate Oscar Piastri but quickly found himself under pressure due to Piastri's spin on Turn 1 caused by Max Verstappen.

The Woking-based outfit led their rivals Ferrari by 21 points before the race but with Carlos Sainz in P2 and a charging Charles Leclerc in P3, all hopes lay with Norris in P1.

But the British driver delivered in the race and took his fourth victory of the season to contain Ferrari's challenge as McLaren won by 14 points to take the title. In his official YouTube channel, Norris shared the video of the celebrations in the parc ferme, which included an embrace from his mother, who told him:

"You smelly boy, I love you. You make so many people happy."

In his interview with GPBlog, the four-time race winner spoke about feeling "proud" of the British team for pushing throughout the 2024 season and coming out trumps in the crucial moments. He said:

"I’m very proud of the whole team for putting up the fight for so long, for starting to catch up and catching up as much as we did. We were the fourth-best team at the beginning of the year. Red Bull have never been the fourth-best team, ever, so we had just too big of a deficit to catch up from the beginning of the season and we could not because they've been too strong still.

Lando Norris also challenged Max Verstappen for the most part in the driver's championship this year.

Lando Norris gives his take on challenging Max Verstappen in 2024

In the interview, McLaren driver Lando Norris stated that he was happy finishing second to Max Verstappen given there was no one challenging the Red Bull driver apart from him and the British team in that 2024 season.

As quoted by the aforementioned source, the Brit said:

"No one else is there fighting him. It's been me and it's been McLaren, so I'm proud of what we've achieved. Do I think we could have won the championship even with a perfect season? I don't. So I'm happy to finish second."

Lando Norris ultimately finished 63 points behind Max Verstappen and was unable to stop him from winning a fourth successive drivers championship this year despite having arguably the faster car for the majority of the season.