Lando Norris feeling 'overwhelming relief' after escaping Max Verstappen 'nightmares'

Lando Norris would have been having "nightmares about Max Verstappen" before finally becoming a Formula 1 champion.

That is the view of 1996 champion Damon Hill, who feels Norris' over-riding emotion in the wake of taking the title on Sunday would have been one of "overwhelming relief" following a difficult season.

Despite opening the season with a victory in Australia, Norris then found himself overshadowed by Oscar Piastri, who emerged from the Dutch Grand Prix at the end of August with a 34-point lead over his McLaren team-mate after the British driver suffered a rare technical failure that forced him to retire.

But Norris, helped by what he conceded to after the race in Abu Dhabi by an extended support network this year, managed to fight back, and despite Verstappen's astonishing charge, held on to beat the Red Bull driver by two points, with Piastri 13 adrift.

Discussing Norris' triumph on the BBC's Chequered Flag podcast, and how he would be feeling, Hill said: "I should think he's feeling an enormous amount of relief because he knows that he doesn't have to have this thing hanging over him, which he's had, at least from halfway through the season.

"I'm sure he probably thought, even before the season started, that he was on course, potentially for a world championship, but it all got away from him when Oscar Piastri overtook him and started to get away.

"Then he dug down and found something in himself, turned it around and took the fight back to Oscar. And then he had Max Verstappen. He must have had nightmares about Max Verstappen because he kept coming and coming and coming.

"Then they [McLaren] had the drop out with the race in Vegas, where they both were disqualified for the skid plate. He lost 25 points there.

"It was pressure all the way to the end, and he dealt with it brilliantly [in Abu Dhabi], and he can now relax.

"You asked me how he's feeling, and I think it's overwhelming relief," along with "gratitude and pride in himself".