Lando Norris has never been shy about saying what plenty in the paddock only mutter privately, and he’s gone back to the sport’s most combustible flashpoint with a line that landed exactly where he knew it would.
During a recent promotional event alongside McLaren CEO Zak Brown, with the pair reflecting on Lewis Hamilton’s title-winning career, Norris began talking about what separates Hamilton from the rest of the grid — the breadth of experience, the ability to operate at the front for years on end, the habit of making big moments look routine. As he framed it, he started to say Hamilton “has not won seven world championships…” before the crowd cut in with the correction they’ve been waiting to shout for four years: “Eight!”
Norris didn’t flinch.
“Should have been eight,” he replied, deadpan enough to sound like it was simply an obvious piece of arithmetic.
It’s one sentence, but it’s a loaded one — because everyone knows what it points to. Abu Dhabi 2021 remains Formula 1’s open wound, the race that decided a winner-takes-all title between Hamilton and Max Verstappen and detonated a rules-and-process debate that still hasn’t properly died. The sport has moved on in a thousand ways since then, but the emotional residue hasn’t. Not for fans, not for teams, and clearly not for drivers who were watching in real time and have their own view of what happened.
That day at Yas Marina, Hamilton and Verstappen started level on points. Hamilton controlled the grand prix for the vast majority of it and, with a late Safety Car, appeared set to shepherd Mercedes to an eighth drivers’ crown for its lead man. Verstappen pitted for fresh tyres and stayed second on track — strategically alive, but dependent on how the race was restarted.
What followed was the decision that has been picked over ever since: then race director Michael Masi restarted the race but only allowed the lapped cars between Hamilton and Verstappen to unlap themselves, rather than the full group. It was, at best, an improvisation; at worst, an intervention. Either way, it manufactured a final-lap confrontation with one car on worn tyres and the other on new ones, and the sporting consequence was immediate. Verstappen went by at Turn 5 and won the race and the title.
Mercedes’ reaction at the time was as raw as it was public. Hamilton described the outcome as “manipulated”, while Toto Wolff’s radio to Masi — “it was not right” — became part of the soundtrack of one of the most controversial finales the championship has ever staged. Red Bull celebrated, Mercedes seethed, and the sport spent the winter trying to convince itself it could turn the page.
Norris’ comment matters not because it’s especially novel — plenty believe Hamilton “should” have eight — but because it shows how the 2021 ending still frames legacies in the public imagination, even among current front-runners. Norris is not some retired pundit tossing a grenade for attention. He’s an active driver, standing next to a team CEO, in front of fans, and he still feels comfortable calling it as he sees it.
And it wasn’t a one-off thought that’s just surfaced in 2026. Norris was outspoken back in 2021, too, criticising the way the restart was handled and suggesting the shape of it was driven by the desire to create a made-for-TV showdown. Asked at the time about only some cars being waved through, Norris said he hadn’t even realised it was limited to those “up to Max”, before adding: “So it was obviously made to be a fight, it was for the TV of course, it was for the result.” He tempered it with a diplomatic nod that judging fairness wasn’t his job — but the point had already been made.
What’s interesting is how naturally that view now sits in the mainstream. In the moment, drivers often default to “it’s not for me to say”; in the years after, the sport usually benefits from distance and selective amnesia. Abu Dhabi has resisted that pattern. It keeps resurfacing because it sits at the intersection of rules, power, and narrative — and because it directly rewrote the history books. When Norris says “should have been eight”, he’s not just offering sympathy for Hamilton. He’s acknowledging that, for a big chunk of the audience, the record still comes with an asterisk in the margin.
Norris also used the same exchange to underline something else: that Hamilton’s reputation isn’t built on scraping by. He talked about Hamilton having “more experience than basically everyone” and insisted he “easily” has what it takes, adding that it would be “cool” to see Hamilton “back at the top and fighting”, something he expects fans will see “more of this year”.
That last line is the subtle tell. This isn’t only nostalgia; it’s current-day positioning. When a driver like Norris speaks about Hamilton in those terms, it’s both respect and a reminder that the grid still measures itself against the standard Hamilton set — and, for some, against the title count they think he should have.
F1 has tried hard to package Abu Dhabi 2021 as a dramatic classic and move on. It was dramatic, no question. But classics don’t usually come with this much baggage, and they don’t keep spilling into unrelated conversations four years later.
Norris only needed three words to drag it all back into the room. In 2026, that’s still all it takes.
