Lando Norris’ podium champagne smash has quickly become a fan-favourite moment of the race weekend.
Rather than simply shaking the Moet & Chandon champagne bottle and spraying it, the McLaren driver tends to add a bit of flair to his celebrations. He hits the base of the bottle on the podium, causing the champagne to bubble up and shoot out of the top, creating a picture-perfect moment.
“Instead of shaking the bottle and then spraying it, you smash it against the ground,” the 25-year-old explained to Christian Hewgill on the F1 Explains podcast.
“The trick here is to not smash it. And the trick to that is by having a very, very thick, strong bottle. So, prosecco bottles, don’t do it. They’re not worth it. Prosecco is normally a very light, thin bottle, so you’ll just smash it and cut your hand open.
“So, this is dangerous,” he added with a smile. “This is dangerous, dangerous stuff.”
He continued, “Yeah, a thick bottle. I’ve been giving it some recently with the smash. I struggled to hit it much harder than I do. I’m waiting for the day it goes horribly wrong, but touch wood, not happened just yet.”
Norris, who has celebrated on the Formula 1 podium 34 times and the top step six times over his career, is currently second in the 2025 drivers’ standings with 176 points. He sits 10 points behind his McLaren team-mate Oscar Piastri who leads with 186 points.
Lando Norris, McLaren F1 Team, 1st position, the McLaren trophy delegate celebrate on the podium
Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images
As a result, the Woking outfit has a 197-point lead over Ferrari, who are second in the constructors’ standings.
The Belgian-British driver is heading into the Canadian Grand Prix weekend at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve. While speaking to the media ahead of the race weekend, Norris admitted that it’s a case of ‘when’ and not ‘if’ he and his team-mate will clash on track.
“We never said we’re going to avoid everything,” said Norris. “I think we’ve actually been quite open in saying at some point, something is probably going to happen.
“We just have to be ready for that. I think both Oscar and myself know that, we’re competitive, we want to beat each other but the main thing is we stay strong together as a team. But everything is in the open, everything is obvious, everything is known between us.
“We both want to win, we both want to beat each other, but at the end of the day there can only be one person and that will be whoever performs the best over the course of the year.
“I think Andrea [Stella, McLaren Team Principal] said it, it’s not an ‘if’, it’s a ‘when’ and we’ll see when that time comes. But of course we’ll try and avoid everything as much as possible but it’s inevitable that it happens in racing.”
