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It was a nervy climax to the season with Piastri spun out of second place at the first corner, dropping to last on the opening lap.
He fought back to 10th and a world championship point, the last car on the lead lap as he maintained his record of having completed every lap of every race all season.
Norris meanwhile dominated the race.
Controlling the early stages, he never relinquished the lead to convert pole into his fourth win of the season.
Norris spoke at length on the meaning of the constructors’ championship title when asked about it by Speedcafe, the Brit having ridden the roller coaster at McLaren in recent years.
“Oscar’s probably fortunate not to go through those first few years that we’ve had,” he joked.
“We didn’t start off great last year, but I had some great times.
“Started off with this [Carlos Sainz] and we made progress, stepped back, made progress, stepped back. Nothing ever clicked, really, and never continued to grow.
“And it was hard just to break that barrier of getting close to Ferrari, Mercedes, and Red Bull, you know, because for such a long period of time, they’ve been the guys who have dominated Formula 1
“Now, not only have we broken that barrier over the last year and a half, we’ve risen to the top of it and to become the best team.
“Ferrari have turned things around a lot over the last couple of years and to catch Red Bull, which I’ve said a couple of times, and Max [Verstappen], who, yeah, one year ago dominated every race.
“For that to flip around so much, we can only just give a hats off to the whole team, because a lot of things have changed.
“People have come and gone, and Andrea [Stella] has done an incredible job.
“To be part of this whole story, to be part of it not long after Zak [Brown] joined McLaren and started changing things and making McLaren into a slightly more happy place than it was prior, I’ve been along the journey with Zak, and we’ve gone through a lot of things together, highs and lows and emotional times.
“It definitely has been a longer rise to get to where we are, which has been fun and I’ve really loved it and I’ve enjoyed it.
“The thing I’ll be proudest and most happy about is the fact I’m still here, the fact I’m still in papaya because I believed in the team for many years.
“I had opportunities to not be in papaya and to maybe go on and win races at an earlier stage in my career and those kind of things,” he added.
“I had those opportunities, but I believed and I wanted to simply do it with McLaren. I wanted to do it with the guys who gave me my opportunity in Formula 1.”
The constructors’ championship brings with it a healthy financial reward, with McLaren looking to rake in more than $200 million in prize money alone.
It’s also confirmation that the team has the ingredients in place for future success, with two drivers who both tasted victory for the first time in 2024.
“In my two seasons with the team, we’ve gone on quite the roller coaster,” said Piastri.
“From the team principal change before my first race, the car was a bit slower than what I thought I’d signed up for, and then from one weekend to the next it seemed it went from struggling to get into the points to almost being able to fight for a podium.
“McLaren’s come close a few times, but never had this kind of opportunity in the last 25 years.”
For team boss Andrea Stella, it was a signal that the team had come full circle.
The Italian joined from Ferrari in 2015, having had success with the Scuderia with Michael Schumacher and Kimi Raikkonen.
He was promoted to team principal of McLaren last January and has been credited as the driving force behind the squad’s meteoric return to glory.
“I often mention to the team the fact that first race in 2015 in Australia, between our lap in Q1 and the pole position, there were five seconds,” he explained.
“I would like to thank in particular, Zak Brown, Paul Walsh, all our shareholders for their faith in the change that gradually they have implemented, and put McLaren in a very solid position from a management point of view.
“When you are solid from a management point of view, when you are trusted, when you start to be able to deliver the investments that were necessary, then you can compete. You can compete at the top.
“I think the final bit of this circle came through the people, unlocking the people, which is something that I’ve said several times,” he added.
“You cannot, cannot achieve these standards, these performances, these operations, this reliability, without every one of the 1000 people operating at very high level.
“That’s what we have gone through in these 10 years at McLaren.
“But hopefully, this is not an end point, this is the starting point for more to come in the future.”
The constructors’ championship is McLaren’s ninth, having won the title in 1974, 1984, 1985, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1991, and 1991.
It is the first time the squad has won the constructors’ title but not the drivers’ in the same season.
