Under the glowing lights of Yas Marina, the moment finally arrived. Lando Norris crossed the line to seal his first Formula 1 world championship, and while the paddock roared in celebration, two special people felt something deeper than joy – relief.
After years of sacrifice, travel, doubt, and relentless graft, Lando’s parents, Adam Norris and Cisca Wauman, watched their son step into motorsport immortality.
They’ve lived every chapter of his journey: the kart tracks no tourist could find, the hotel rooms that blurred into one another, the countless weekends split across continents. And on Sunday night, it all came rushing back.
For Adam Norris, the win was not just historic – it was cathartic.
“Relief, probably,” he said, when asked to sum up his emotions by F1 TV's Laura Winter. “It’s been a long time and a difficult season, and in the middle when we dipped below.
“But it’s a long journey, it’s a difficult journey. There’s a lot of pain involved in getting there – painful days and long days and sacrifices, and now we’re there. Champion of the world, it’s cool.”
No Commentary - Just Classical Music
At Yas Marina, Norris’ path to third place – and thus the title—was hardly serene. A mid-race pit stop dropped him into traffic, forcing him into wheel-to-wheel combat, including a tense scrap with Yuki Tsunoda. His father lived the tension in atypical fashion.
“It was actually really good,” Adam admitted with a grin. “For the first time all year, I locked myself in a room, I watched it without commentary, and I just sat there with the headphones on and very quietly watched the whole thing.
“The commentary gets you excited… my heart rate’s going through the roof, so my thing was, ‘Can I listen to some classical music?’. And you know, if he’d had a puncture he wouldn’t have got there.”
Reflecting on the road that led to that emotional post-race embrace, Adam added:
“I think it will do [take time to sink in]. But I love the journey… I really enjoyed every part of that journey, but it was hard, really difficult.
“Some of the other parents packed up because they didn’t want to do that, but I was there and the team was there the whole way through to keep going.”
And what did he say to his son in the moment victory became real?
“I can’t swear, but just ‘champion of the world’. You can never take it away – if someone’s won that, you can never take it away. It’s a big day.”
‘Emotionally drained, but very happy’
Lando’s mother, Cisca Wauman stood nearby, overwhelmed but glowing with pride. For her, the championship was layered – with joy, but also with memories of the sacrifices that shaped Lando’s childhood.
Speaking to Sky Sports F1, she captured the moment simply:
“Emotionally drained, but very happy. Very happy for the family, for the team, McLaren, the fans, because they’ve been always there,” she said.
©McLaren
She recalled the early years, when karting divided the family’s routines.
“When Lando was seven, he started karting; by the time he was eight he was competing together with his brother Ollie, and it took the two boys one direction and the two girls I have the other direction.
“So I missed Lando and Ollie, seeing them growing up as kids. Suddenly playing with a tractor naked in the garden was done, and I missed that! But this is amazing, this is fantastic.”
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As the laps ticked down in Abu Dhabi, Wauman admitted that the tension was almost unbearable.
“Those last laps, they took ages! You never know [what can happen], until the race is done,” she said.
“They were calling us down… with 10 laps to go – the race is not over, how can they call us down getting ready for this! But here we are.”
A world title is never won alone. For Lando Norris, Abu Dhabi crowned not just his career milestone, but the endurance, commitment, and love of the people who’ve carried him since the beginning.
And for Adam and Cisca, the moment wasn’t just triumphant – it was the long-awaited exhale after a journey years in the making.
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