McLaren Racing have defended Donald Trump’s visit to their garage at the Miami GP after the divisive former US president’s appearance provoked a backlash that soured Sunday’s win.
It came after Lando Norris said it had been “cool” to meet Trump after his victory in Miami – the first of his Formula 1 career.
“He said he was my lucky charm because it’s my win,” Norris said. “There’s a lot of special people or cool people that have been here this weekend. Donald is someone that you have got to have a lot of respect for in many ways.
“For anyone like that who acknowledges what you can go out and do, and acknowledges the work ethic that goes into things, you have got to be thankful for that. And I was.”
Following online criticism, McLaren issued a statement to defend Trump’s controversial appearance at their garage.
“McLaren is a non-political organisation however we recognise and respect the office of President of the United States,” the team said.
“When the request was made to visit our garage on race day we accepted alongside the president of the FIA and the CEO’s of Liberty Media and Formula 1.
“We were honoured that McLaren Racing was chosen as the representative of F1 which gave us the opportunity to showcase the world class engineering that we bring to motorsport.”
In addition to an ongoing hush-money trial in New York, Trump is facing three other criminal cases and dozens of charges. One case concerns conspiratorial attempts to overturn his election defeat.
Despite the series of charges and cases, incumbent Joe Biden and Trump are set to face each other in a US presidential election this year.
Trump was also pictured chatting with McLaren CEO Zak Brown before the race.