McLaren had a special message for Lando Norris after Red Bull were handed a huge punishment by the FIA.
During the 2025 campaign, McLaren and Red Bull shared multiple battles on track as Norris, Oscar Piastri and Max Verstappen fought for the world championship.
Although McLaren had the constructors' championship wrapped up pretty quickly, the driver's title race went down to the wire.
In the end, Norris came out on top as he finished the season just two points ahead of Verstappen, with Piastri third.
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Amid the heat of the title fight, Red Bull were handed a 'significant' fine after a member of the team had attempted to remove tape which was being used to guide Norris to his position.
An investigation was launched by the FIA following a report from the Race Director and concluded that a team member "re-entered the gate well area at Gate 1 in proximity of the second grid position".
In the end, a fine of ā¬50,000 was issued to Red Bull for the pre-race breach. Half of the fine was suspended for the remainder of the 2025 campaign.
Now, it has been revealed that McLaren wrote a special message to Norris prior to the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.
As per a clip posted on social media by reporter Kunal Shah, Norris' race engineer, Will Joseph, was seen holding up a tape with a message that read: "You got this."
Back in October, Norris was asked about the incident, now known as 'Tape Gate'.
The Brit said: "Good job by them because they can [do it]. But, it didn't matter. I didn't use the tape. So it was extra amusing because I didn't need it. We just put it there in case, so it made it extra funny because they got a penalty for it and I didn't even need it.
"They also tried to remove it and failed because we made it special, so they couldn't take it off either. So it was just amusing. Little side quests, I guess, for the teams to entertain themselves. But we were the ones laughing about it."
Norris added: "I've used it for a little while, and they tried to remove it already and they tried to remove it in Monza and a couple of other places. I'm using it to try and see them take it off!
"Sometimes I will never use it at all because it's almost too far away. Sometimes I do."
Topics:Ā McLaren, Red Bull Racing, Lando Norris, Formula 1
Marcus Chan