The Norris Sao Paulo win was secured from pole position at Interlagos, and the podium celebration that followed produced a broken champagne bottle and a scare from nearby pyrotechnics. McLaren team principal Andrea Stella said the driver was unhurt, and that the surprise came from the fireworks rather than the bottle.
Norris Sao Paulo win sets up a chaotic podium
Norris won at Interlagos for the second year in a row, in a dominant drive through mixed conditions. The result added to his victories in Hungary and the Netherlands this season.
His trademark celebration is to bang the champagne bottle against the podium floor until the cork pops. This time the bottle broke instead. Television footage then showed him startled as pyrotechnics ignited nearby, prompting social media concern that he may have been burned.
Andrea Stella says the driver was all right
Stella told reporters he had not spoken to Norris since the celebration. "I have not talked to him, I have not checked. I understand he is all right," the Italian said.
He said the pyrotechnic, not the bottle, produced the shock. "I understand that he had an incident with the pyrotechnic, not with the bottle. I think that the bottle didn't go well either, because it seemed like it had only the upper part."
"But I think he was just surprised that when he was going for the bottle I understand that the pyrotechnic started."
Mixed conditions and the championship picture
Stella praised Norris's ability to find the limit on a track that sat between dry and wet. "When Lando operates at his best, he is definitely one of the best drivers on the grid," he said.
"We have seen that in these conditions, like yesterday, it is not the first time that when you have mixed, variable conditions, he kind of is one of the fastest in finding the limit, and you have seen it today as well, when the track was in the middle between dry and wet."
Norris, 26, sits sixth in the drivers' standings, 33 points behind second-placed Max Verstappen. Kimi Antonelli has already clinched the drivers' championship, and Mercedes secured the constructors' title at Interlagos.
According to Sky Sports' race report, Verstappen came from 21st on the grid to finish second, with George Russell and Kimi Antonelli fourth and fifth. The next round is the Las Vegas Grand Prix, scheduled for November 20-22.
Analysis: two separate systems on one podium
This section is analysis, not reported fact. A podium celebration runs two independent mechanisms at once: a pressurised bottle handled by hand, and a pyrotechnic sequence fired on a timer. Neither is arranged around a driver who is looking down at the floor rather than out at the flame jets.
Stella's description of a bottle left with "only the upper part" points to a break at the neck, where the glass is thinnest. That is a handling problem. The pyrotechnics are a sequencing problem. Both are questions of clearance around the podium footprint rather than of driver judgement.
The original report is from gmanetwork.com.
