Lando Norris reveals remarkable thoughts during final laps to F1 title

Lando Norris has chronicled what was going through his mind during the last two laps of the season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, as he drove towards his maiden F1 drivers' championship.

The McLaren driver prevailed against Max Verstappen and Oscar Piastri at the Yas Marina Circuit, finishing third to take the crown by just two points from the Dutchman, who won the race.

Norris and Piastri's MCL39s had dominated the campaign, but the Red Bull driver managed to drag himself back into contention during the run-in, setting up a tense, fraught three-way championship decider under the lights of the Gulf-state track.

"The week leading up to the biggest race of my life," he recalled on the latest episode of his YouTube series LandoLog.

"I didn't know how to be, I didn't know how to act like I didn't know how I was meant to be.

"I didn't know if I was meant to be really excited or not, scared. I thought I'd be pretty damn nervous, because I do... I get nervous every race, every qualifying, like, always. That's a normal thing.

"I thought it'd be a bit too chaotic for me. But in fact, getting in the car, I actually felt pretty ready. I felt very calm. Just another day in the office. I felt ready. I still knew in my head: 'This is it', and the time had come."

However, the Briton maintains it felt like any other grand prix. "It felt like a normal race. Genuinely, felt like a normal race," he said.

Although as the laps ticked down, the 11-time grand prix winner found his mind starting to wander.

At first, the 26-year-old worried about his car, but then his thoughts turned to the journey that led him to being on the cusp of the F1 drivers' title.

"But two laps to go, and then time starts to slow down a little bit," Norris continued.

"You start thinking of every little screw, every bolt, every wire. I'm imagining inside my car, what everything is doing. You're in that moment of: 'Damn, what could go wrong? Because everything's going right.'

"Your mind starts thinking of these little things. I just started thinking of my first day in a go-kart. I was on this kind of mini tennis court, and we put some slicks on the go-kart, and I was just doing some doughnuts and just having some fun.

"And slowly around the lap, I kind of pictured the years that followed: stepping up into the proper racing to going on to race in Europe, the World Championships 2014, Formula 4, Ginetta, New Zealand, Jerez, F3, F2.

"Like, very quickly, just seeing pictures in my mind, while I'm driving, while I'm trying to still keep it on track and not do anything silly.

"All these things are going through my head, and I'm picturing all of them and trying to just remember all of them."

As Norris came through the final sector, he started thinking of his parents and those around him, as it started to dawn on him what he was about to achieve.

"And that's how my last two laps pretty much went, until we go under the hotel," he added.

"All of a sudden, I pictured my mum in the garage. That was the first time, the first moment the whole year, I just about started to realise what was happening, what was about to happen.

"And all I did was picture the garage. Picture my parents there, my brother, my sisters, all in the garage for the final four corners, and I came around the last corner, and again, then that next step of emotion starts to kick in — and realisation — of what's happened.

"The last 18 years all led to this one moment."