2025 Formula 1 champion Lando Norris was met with cheering crowds as he took to the iconic Goodwood House balcony during the Festival of Speed.
Before a special balcony celebration of his maiden championship title, Norris took the McLaren MCL60 up the famous Goodwood hillclimb. He parked the 2023 machinery in front of Goodwood House and was guided to the balcony by the Duke of Richmond.
"It's amazing. I mean, obviously I stood here with Valentino yesterday. I stood here with my hero. He's a guy I looked up to when I was a kid," Norris said in front of the crowd during an interview with former F1 driver and Sky Sports analyst Karun Chandhok.
"This was a cool moment for me. Meet your heroes. They say don't meet your heroes. Definitely meet your heroes. But it's just good fun to come back here once again, to have fun in a beautiful old car. The start of the resurgence from McLaren."
He added: "This is my dream. I came here with my brother and my dad 13, 14 years ago. I met some of the drivers back then, and I thought, 'One day, I want to be like these guys.' And 13 years later, I get to be the lucky one who stands up here in front of all of you. I get to wear the number one.
"I get to represent McLaren. This has been my dream since I was a kid. So I'm a lucky guy that I get to stand here and have so much support from everyone."
After battling his team-mate Oscar Piastri throughout the season and fending off four-time champion Max Verstappen in the second half of the year, Norris claimed his first championship title at the 2025 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.
The iconic start line with LN1 đ«#McLarenF1 pic.twitter.com/Xo6F0CGvOc
â McLaren Mastercard Formula 1 Team (@McLarenF1) July 11, 2026
Despite the celebrations, McLaren team principal Andrea Stella, who joined Norris on the balcony, stressed that the Woking outfit remains focused on the remainder of the 2026 season.
"Well, first of all, the past is the past, but an incredible past. It's almost career and life-defining if you want, having been at McLaren and building block by block, day by day, together with Lando.
"We don't forget where we started from. We were almost last, and we ended up constructors' world champions and then double world champions, and Lando world champion.
"So a massive achievement and we were happy for ourselves but above all, for all the papaya fans who could celebrate all these with us and hopefully that was a great emotion.
"But there's a little bit of a curse in Formula 1, and it's the fact that you always look at the future and looking at the future, we want to in a position to repeat these kinds of results very soon and see Lando and Oscar succeeding and then fighting again for the world championship."
Norris and Piastri currently sit fifth and sixth in the drivers' championship with 97 and 82 points, respectively. As a result, McLaren is third in the constructors' championship with 179 points, behind Mercedes with 333 points and Ferrari with 255 points.
