‘You got this’: The tiny strip of tape that followed Lando Norris to the title
In a season decided by a sliver, it was fitting that one of the defining images of Lando Norris’s title run was no bigger than your palm.
Just before lights out in Abu Dhabi, McLaren’s Will Joseph crouched on the grid holding the team’s usual pit‑wall alignment tape — the little strip they lay down to give Norris a visual reference as he pulls into his box. On it, in quick felt-tip script and framed by two hand-drawn hearts, someone had written: “You got this.” Beneath that, the shorthand “K2,” a nudge to switch a pre-start setting.
It’s a tiny thing, the sort of talisman you only hear about after the fact. But this year, details like that mattered. Norris sealed his first Formula 1 world title with third place at Yas Marina, edging race winner Max Verstappen to the crown by two points at the wire.
The tape itself had already had its moment of notoriety. Back in Austin, it became the centre of a bizarre flashpoint between Red Bull and McLaren when a Red Bull team member re-entered the grid area after the formation lap had started — a clear safety no-no — and attempted to interfere with McLaren’s tape. The FIA came down with a €50,000 fine for Red Bull, half of it suspended, specifically for the breach of returning to the grid area. There’s no regulation covering the tape, but the symbol stuck.
Norris and McLaren didn’t blink. They kept laying down the marker. And in Abu Dhabi, the message scrawled on it told you everything about the mood in the orange garage: calm, close-knit, certain.
The championship fight between McLaren and Red Bull ran hot all year. Verstappen ended up with more victories than anyone — eight — while Norris and his teammate Oscar Piastri collected seven apiece as McLaren pressed Red Bull harder than many expected. In the end, it wasn’t a streak of domination that decided things but relentless execution and an ability to live in the margins. Sometimes, the margins are literally a strip of tape.
Even in the aftermath, there was a thread of respect. Joseph and Verstappen’s race engineer, Gianpiero Lambiase, were spotted sharing a smile and a handshake in the Abu Dhabi paddock — two of the most influential voices on the radio this year taking a quiet beat after a brutal campaign that went the distance.
Verstappen, under the weather and ruled out of flying, missed the FIA prize-giving gala but sent a video message as the championship trophy changed hands. “Big congratulations to McLaren and especially Lando,” he said. “You guys had an unbelievable season and it was really cool to be able to race against you guys until the end.” It was a classy nod from a four-time champion who knows better than most how fine the line can be between winning and watching.
As for that “K2” scribble? It looked for all the world like a pre-start reminder for Norris to tweak a steering-wheel mode before the launch, the sort of housekeeping that keeps a driver’s head clear when the heart rate spikes. The affectionate hearts and the simple “You got this” were the kicker: a human touch in a sport that often feels coldly technical.
McLaren’s habit of using the pit-wall tape goes back a while; it’s practical, harmless, and part of their rhythm. In 2025 it became something more — a talisman during a title run that asked Norris to be faultless, his crew to be sharper still, and his race engineer to deliver with the right words at exactly the right time.
The last image of the season was Norris up on the podium, not winning the race but winning the war, McLaren mechanics exhaling for what felt like the first time in months. The first image, in hindsight, was a strip of tape and two words that felt almost too simple for a championship-decider.
In a year this tight, simple worked.
