Lando Norris praised Donald Trump following his victory in yesterday’s Miami Grand Prix, which the controversial ex-US president attended.
Trump met McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown at the track ahead of Sunday’s race. The team advised RaceFans he was not present as their guest, but they were asked to allow him to visit their garage.
Norris did not meet Trump until after the race. “I didn’t see him in the garage,” he said. “I was busy prepping for the race.
“But he saw me after, and he came up to congratulate me. So I guess an honour, because whenever you have someone like this, it has to be an honour for them to come up to you, to take time out of their life, to pay their respect for what you’ve done.”
Trump “said he was my lucky charm because it’s my win,” Norris related. “So I don’t know if he’s going to come to more races now.
“But there’s a lot of special people or cool people that have been here this weekend. Donald is someone that you got to have a lot of respect for in many ways.
“For anyone like that who acknowledges what you can go out and do and acknowledges the work ethic that goes into things, you got to be thankful for that, and I was. So a cool moment, and that’s all.”
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Trump, who was elected to the presidency in 2016 but failed to win re-election four years later, is a polarising figure. He refused to concede defeat in 2020 and was accused of inciting a mob which invaded the US Capitol building on January 6th, 2021, resulting in the deaths of five people including a police officer.
He is currently on trial in New York for allegedly falsifying business records to cover up a ‘hush money’ payment to an adult film star. This is one of many legal threats Trump faces: Other cases are planned concerning his alleged role in the January 6th insurrection, illegal retention of classified documents, election interference, defamation and fraud.
Trump was pictured after the race, in a hat bearing his election campaign slogan, alongside Norris and FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem.
Norris’ team said in a statement: “McLaren is a non-political organisation however we recognise and respect the office of President of the United States so when the request was made to visit our garage on race day we accepted alongside the president of the FIA and the CEO’s of Liberty Media and Formula 1.
“We were honoured that McLaren Racing was chosen as the representative of F1 which gave us the opportunity to showcase the world class engineering that we bring to motorsport.”
Other Formula 1 drivers have commented less favourably on Trump in the past. Lewis Hamilton previously referred to his 2016 election victory as part of “a pretty terrible year for the world.”
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