Chapter Text
Lando 17/1/26
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Transcription:
“Hey mum, it’s me. I just wanted to say– I got the job.
[Laughter]. I got it. I’m starting like, shit, like right away.
Ring me when you see this! Love ya.”
LANDO NORRIS RETURNS TO FORMULA 1
February 6th 2026
F1 Correspondent & Presenter Bernie Collins
On February 4th, just a week before Formula 1’s 2026 pre-season testing was slated to kick off, Sky Sports announced the newest addition to their Formula 1 broadcast team: Lando Norris. The very same Lando Norris who, after his colossal accident in the middle of the 2023 season, swore to reporters that he would never enter a Formula 1 paddock again.
“No. They told me at the hospital that I can’t– they said that driving isn’t ever going to be possible for me again. There’s no part of me that belongs in F1 anymore.”
- Norris, 2023 when asked about remaining attached to the sport.
As he went through his months-long recovery, which consisted of two surgeries and extensive physiotherapy, Norris kept almost entirely out of the public eye. His absence from any F1 events seemed to confirm his desire to leave the racing world behind. On Wednesday morning, though, Sky Sports announced him as a pundit for fifteen races across the season. The question that has captured fans around the world, and fellow drivers themselves, is a rather simple one: What changed? Norris explains it best himself in the attached interview with fellow Sky Sports pundit, Naomi Schiff.
INTERVIEWER: Lando. You’ve been dragged back. Why now?
NORRIS: [A slow smile. An embarrassed laugh.] I don’t know. I know that’s a shi- er, sorry, a bad answer, but it’s the truth. I guess I missed it all just a bit more than I hated it. The good stuff won out in the end.
INTERVIEWER: Is it mostly the cars and the excitement of new regulations that’s pulled you in again, or is it a little deeper than that?
NORRIS: Um, yeah no it’s definitely more than the cars. I was behind a wheel from, I dunno, seven? But I’d also just been in the world for so long. It took me a second to realise that it was more than the driving that keeps us all around. The fans, the energy, all of it. There’s something shared here that no one else really, like, has? If that makes sense.
INTERVIEWER: Of course it does.
NORRIS: I couldn’t live without it. My physio calls me an addict. [Laughter.] That’s not to say the cars didn’t bring me back too, though. These new regs, ugh, I’m so jealous of everyone that gets to drive under them. The overtakes should be mega.
INTERVIEWER: Speaking of other drivers– we have to talk about the one that took your seat. There was talk of animosity between the two of you after the accident. Does anything of that sort remain? If so, do you think that it could cloud your judgement?
NORRIS: Piastri? Uh, I honestly barely know the guy. His luck was just up when mine was down, I s’pose. [A pained smile.] I don’t think about him, or, um, any of it that much. Not anymore. It definitely won’t get in the way of my ability to speak on racing.
INTERVIEWER: Well, to the folks watching at home, tune in to the season opener in Melbourne to see Lando Norris commentate his first F1 race, alongside the great David Croft. We at Sky Sports hope to see you all there!
[Lando looks towards the camera, and gives a slight wave. His expression is unreadable.]
ash <3 @wdclindjar • 2h
LANDO NORRIS IS BACK????????
skysports.com/f1/news/12040/13492445/lando-norris-returns
1.1k Reposts • 272 Quotes • 11.3k Likes • 8 Bookmarks
b IS AT BAHRAIN @mctwink • 5m
SHUT THE FUCK UP
sam³³ @friidaaythen • 3m
is this how it felt when jesus came back
bry | LN BACK?! @colapintoe3 • 1h
did u guys seee that one interview 😭😭😭 lando is gonna grab that mic on sunday and immediately start tearing into piastri. bro does NOT forgive or forget
48 Reposts • 14 Quotes • 546 Likes • 1 Bookmark
#1 osc defender @saturn5683 • 16m
bruh what piastri didnt even do anything
lara @formulara6 • 10m
did you forget the part where he stole his seat with like zero remorse
cam @tsunodant • 3m
are u 12 who tf cares thats how reserves work. bro was just doing his job
archie⁸¹ @piastralia • 20m
i am NOT getting involved in this drama but omfg imagine how awkward this is for oscar… the guy whose suffering you accidentally kinda profited off of who DEFINITELY hates you commentating on your races??? miss me with that shit i would quit
876 Reposts • 235 Quotes • 9.2k Likes • 449 Bookmarks
sam³³ @friidaaythen • 5m
its like kind of poetic if you squint
alex @44rrari44 • 5m
you might be onto something
jenna @mcjennaf1 • 5m
how hard are you expecting us to squint queen…
MONACO, FRIDAY, 7:00PM
Lando spent the entire first week of February cooped up in his flat, pacing and frantically checking his phone. On Friday he was joined by none other than Max Fewtrell– his supposedly helpful best friend who was not helping.
“Dude, who the fuck cares what Twitter thinks? Put your phone down, I’m begging you. What are you even freaked out about?”
“They’re all saying that I fucking hate Piastri!” Lando hissed, ripping a hand through his already flattened curls.
Max blinked, “You do hate Piastri.”
“That has nothing to do with anything,” Lando said, plopping down on the couch.
“So let me get this straight, you’re bugging out because everyone is saying that you hate the… person that you hate?”
“They can’t know that I hate him! I have to be, like, a professional.”
Max let out a laugh and buried his head in his hands, “How the fuck do you have a job?”
The thing was, Lando had sort of considered the whole predicament while he was signing his contract. It was just a tiny voice in the back of his head, though, an easily ignorable one.
You’ll have to see Oscar Piastri.
At the time, it was easy enough to wave off. The guy had never directly done anything to Lando, and he really wasn’t one to hold a grudge anyways. How many times had him and Verstappen sent each other off on the track and then flown home together? Friendship came easy to Lando, so surely simple civility would be even easier.
As the time where he entered the paddock edged closer though, Lando was forced to confront that maybe he was in fact one to hold a grudge. It was just one conversation, really. He shouldn't still be hung up on it. It was years ago now. But every time he heard that name, everything came back. He heard the words as clearly as the first time they'd been spoken to him. So, yeah, Piastri wasn’t particularly hard to hate, and apparently it was slightly more obvious than he’d thought.
“Oi,” Lando said, waving in the direction of his flatscreen, “I need a distraction. Put on Sky. They might be talking about me.”
“You’re the most self centered person I've ever met, y’know that?”
Lando laughed and Max shook his head, grabbing the remote and flipping the TV on.
“Oh for fucks sake.”
Lando’s gaze shot up, immediately settling on the grainy footage that Sky was broadcasting. It was his car, crumpled into the metal siding of Turn 9. Underneath, a line of text ran continuously: LANDO NORRIS’ CAREER-ENDING CRASH, MONACO 2023. They’d gone all out and included the race commentary as well. The fire was hard to see right at this second of the video, but Lando had memorised the entire thing. It would flicker up in the next few seconds, and that’s when the commentators’ voice would start to rise– a high, reedy panic drenching his every word. Even now, Lando could feel the warmth all around him. Fire, though he hadn’t known it at the time, tracing over his shoulder blades like wings. Fire, clutching on to his hair, his gloves. The smell of his own skin beginning to singe, the taste of his dreams, his life, beginning to fall apart all around him–
“Lando. Hey, mate, c’mon. I turned it off, it’s okay. It’s okay.”
In the early days, Lando would have shook his head and sobbed, “It’s not okay. It’s not. Don’t you dare tell me that it’s fucking okay.”
And then Max would have lapsed into silence because, well, what could he possibly say to that? What do you tell someone who has lost the very thing they lived for? There are no words. There is only silence. And that was what it had been, for months. The two of them, sometimes joined by Lando’s family, sitting in hospital wings and physio centers, drowning in the silence. It was the loneliest Lando had ever felt.
“Lando.” Max’s voice cut through the flurry of memories, and Lando snapped his head up, already horrifically embarrassed at letting himself get so lost. He was supposed to have a handle on this now. Cringing, he shook Max’s hand off of where it lay on his back, and turned up to look at him.
“Shit, sorry. I spaced out.”
Max sighed, “It was a little more than spacing out, mate. Are you sure you’re good to do all of this?”
“I’ve told you,” Lando said, “I’m all good. That was just– I wasn’t expecting to see it. It’s fine. Like, you can turn it back on. I don’t care.”
“Absolutely the fuck not.”
Lando rolled his eyes, “Fine. Hey y’know what though?”
“What?”
Lando grinned, “ I was right. They were talking about me.”
Some of the tension knitting Max’s brows melted away, and Lando breathed a secret sigh of relief. He didn’t need Max hounding him about taking things slow or whatever. Everything was fine. Lando was fine. He could make jokes, and get up in the mornings, and commentate. He was a perfectly functioning human being.
“You’re fucking insufferable,” Max laughed.
They spent the rest of the afternoon playing round after round of Mario Kart. They steered clear of the news, dancing around anything that would be too much. Lando was perfectly content to go through the entire season doing just that with everybody.
Especially Oscar Piastri.
MELBOURNE, SATURDAY, 5:00 AM
Oscar was pretty determined to never leave the house ever again. He’d found out the news at the exact same time as everyone else, sitting on his family’s worn leather couch in Melbourne. Oscar supposed that there was no real reason for anyone to tell him beforehand, it didn’t actually matter. But– didn’t it? Just a little? Oscar was pretty sure that Lando Norris had zero kind words to spare for him, and the idea of him commentating for something like half of Oscar’s races was making him quite nauseous. The worst part was that everyone seemed to be implying that he was over-reacting. He’d just called Zak, voice hushed as he paced around his sitting room, trying not to wake his family up. Earlier that night, they’d all done exactly what Zak was about to, shrugged and told him to keep his mind on the racing. For some reason, it was what his mum had said that stuck in his mind all night.
“Sweetheart,” she’d smiled, “This stuff wouldn’t usually bother you at all.”
Everyone thought that he was cold, Oscar knew that. Sometimes it was an insult, sometimes it was praise, but no matter what, it was always being said. That was making this entire thing worse. Was he really that detached? Why was absolutely no reaction expected from him over something like this? Well, he thought, hadn’t he said over and over that Lando’s crash was his own fault? It was a little cruel, he could admit that. But it was also true. Maybe his mum was right. Maybe Oscar wasn’t the sort to feel guilty. Maybe this was some lacklustre charade– but it didn’t feel like that. The dread in his stomach felt very, dangerously real.
To Oscar’s utter disgust and disbelief, Twitter seemed to be the only place that understood the level of panic this situation required. Oscar wholeheartedly despised being on Twitter after his humiliating F2 tweets had resurfaced, but at least everyone there was aware that this season was going to, at best, be horrifically awkward for him. At worst, he would have to sit through endless criticism from the mouth of the driver he sort of used to idolise. And then sort of stole a seat from, sort of in the wake of a career ending tragedy. And then he had– God. Oscar couldn’t even think about that day.
Maybe, he told himself, flicking on Sky Sports, maybe everything would be okay. Lando was just a pundit, Oscar barely interacted with those guys! Sure, there might be one or two awkward post-race interviews if he could manage a podium, but then he’d be too busy celebrating the podium to even care. At least, he thought grimly, the car that McLaren had pushed out under the new regulations was so shit that anything like that was pretty unlikely.
The adverts on Sky ended, and he zeroed in, ready to watch some useless local sport and zone out. Instead, he was met with the F1 logo flashing across the screen, followed by an all too familiar orange car.
“And for those viewing who haven’t seen it, though I can’t imagine how, here is the full footage of Norris’ 2023 crash.”
Oscar watched, unblinking, as Lando swept his car into Turn 9. He watched the front wing shiver, and the entire chassis swerve the wrong way. It was just simple understeer. The Tunnel was a grueling spot on the circuit, everyone knew that: one second of slipped focus and you’d be in the barriers.
Not like this, though, Oscar thought as he watched Norris’ car go up in flames.
As he watched, he couldn't help but remember the moment he got the call from McLaren. He’d been in his trailer, in Monaco as well, decompressing after his F2 win. It had been a great campaign so far. Everyone knew he would win the title, and the satisfaction burned slow but strong in his chest. He was working towards greatness, the way he’d always wanted to. Measured, planned.
Oscar never did become F2 champion. Because the next race he was in an F1 car, and Lando Norris was in a hospital bed. His plan had fallen apart.
Oscar changed the channel before they could show Norris’ body being dragged from the car’s melting husk, settling for some horrible soap opera. He let the sound become nothing more than a background murmur and stared out at the window. He realised with a start that the sun was beginning to rise– he’d spent the entire night awake, picking over the same few thoughts in a relentless cycle.
That was the last night he’d ever spend worrying over Lando Norris, Oscar decided. The past was the past, and he refused to let himself get stuck in it. He would do what he always did. Tune everything else out, focus on what was ahead.
For an excruciating moment all he could see was the image of Lando the last time Oscar had seen him, furious and covered in bandages, but with a shake of his head, he let it float away with everything else.