Hailing from the UK, Lando Norris is well aware of the British weather’s unpredictability and the heavy downpours. However, the McLaren driver was scared to death when a raging storm hit the Imola circuit this year. As it did, Norris asked an F1 journalist to get out of harm’s way and called her crazy. The F1 journalist Julianne Cerasoli recalled the incident.
F1 drivers gathered together at the Imola circuit during the Emilia Romagna GP weekend and paid tributes to Ayrton Senna. The tribute was led by Sebastian Vettel, as all the drivers walked to the spot where Senna crashed the car. The four-time champion even took Senna’s 1993 MP4/8 out for a lap later in the weekend.
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However, as the drivers returned from the tribute, a thunderstorm hit the Imola track along with some lightning. Norris was among the drivers who returned in the heavy rainfall and noticed Cerasoli taking refuge under a tree. The Briton called her out and told her that she was crazy for standing under a tree and not returning to the paddock.
The F1 journalist posted about the same on her Instagram as the two were captured having this discussion in the thunderstorms. Her caption read, “‘You’re crazy, get out.” It was something of the guy Lando called me to talk to when I was trying to get a little less wet, next to a tree, in the unbelievable storm that hit as we were paying homage to Senna in Imola.”
She further wrote that she was used to the thunderstorms accompanied by lightning as she hailed from Brazil, where it is a common occurrence. On the contrary, Norris has a completely opposite reaction to her as she suggests, “Lando was walking right down the middle of the track scared to death of the trees, when the lightning was far away.”
The 2023 Brazilian GP qualifying when the track turned into the scene of an apocalyptic movie is the perfect case in point to indicate Cerasoli’s point. That’s how the weather generally is around Brazil’s tropical areas and hence, Cerasoli wasn’t scared.
She ended the caption by explaining how she’s thankful to Peter J Fox, the photographer who took the picture for capturing the moment. She explained how the off-track relationship between a driver and a journalist often goes unnoticed and the picture taken by him portrayed the same.
