Norris defends Coca-Cola cooldown room stand: 'I can drink whatever I like'

Lando Norris has doubled down on his now-viral cooldown room defiance at the Spanish Grand Prix, telling media in Austin that he still believes drivers should be free to drink whatever they want after a race — and that nobody from Formula 1 has raised the incident with him since.

The McLaren driver finished third at the Madrid circuit in September, losing his lead when a virtual safety car allowed Kimi Antonelli and Max Verstappen to make cheap pitstops. In the cooldown room afterwards, Norris was apparently asked to set aside the Coca-Cola he was drinking — a rival brand to Pepsi, which holds an official Formula 1 partnership — and his clipped response spread rapidly across social media. “I just did a race, so I’m allowed to drink what I would like. Thank you so much,” he said at the time.

Speaking ahead of the United States Grand Prix in Austin, Norris confirmed the matter had not been formally escalated to him personally. “No, no one’s ever said anything to me since,” he said. “I feel like we should be allowed to drink whatever we want after a race, especially when you’re in it for two hours. It’s been some of the hottest races, cars are also difficult to drive, so I feel like I should be allowed to drink what I want.”

Norris suggested McLaren bore the brunt of any official displeasure rather than him directly, and that the team has since introduced unbranded drink holders to sidestep the issue. “I think the team might have been told off more than I was,” he said. “And therefore we have like little holders to put our drinks in, so it’s unbranded. But I think I’m allowed to drink whatever I can — it’s just the branding issues that they have. That’s simply all it was, I think. It’s just TV and branding and all of those things, but I can drink whatever I like.”

Not everyone has been sympathetic. Former Haas team principal Guenther Steiner argued on a podcast that the episode reflected poorly on Norris’s professionalism. “If you are a professional, you don’t do that. End of story,” Steiner said. “You know what you can do and what you cannot do. You’re well trained.”

Despite Steiner’s criticism, the clip was widely shared and broadly celebrated online, with many fans siding with Norris’s frustration at commercial restrictions immediately after a physically demanding race.