Carlos Sainz 'putts' Lando Norris in the shade with "by-a-mile" victory

Sainz, Norris, McLaren, Ferrari — Photo: © LAT Images

Carlos Sainz - Lando Norris

Sainz 'putts' Norris in the shade with "by-a-mile" victory

The former McLaren team-mates played a couple of rounds in São Paulo

Ian Parkes

Friday 12 November 2021 10:30

Carlos Sainz has jokingly revealed to leaving Lando Norris "a bit depressed" after handing his close friend a golfing lesson this week ahead of the São Paulo Grand Prix.

The duo forged a strong bond during their two years together as McLaren team-mates prior to Sainz's departure to Ferrari at the start of the season.

While they obviously do not enjoy the level of contact they had at McLaren, Sainz and Norris continue to enjoy each other's company away from the race track when they can.

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That has resulted in several rounds of golf over the course of the year, with Sainz, in particular, taking great delight in his latest performance.

Sat alongside one another on a rare occasion this year for the drivers' pre-race press conference at Interlagos, asked 'what have you go for us', Norris was first to reply.

The Briton said: "There are many things Carlos is going to want to talk about in this one, so it's all yours Carlos."

Smiling to himself, Sainz replied: "You don't want to give a slight introduction to it?" to which Norris said: "This is your moment of glory."

The Spanish driver then took centre stage and said: "We've been spending some time together here in Brazil, since Monday, to be precise.

"We managed to play a couple of rounds of golf, and I must say Lando had the pleasure to witness one of the best rounds of golf he's ever seen as a golfer, thanks to my five over [par] with five birdies round. I managed to beat him by a mile."

Turning to Norris, he added: "You've been lucky to see that level of playing and that amount of birdies in a round and check out how you actually get to play golf.

"Since then he's a bit depressed but I think he can make it fully recovered."

Asked whether he enjoyed his golf, Norris said: "The first day I enjoyed it and then the second day I didn't play so well."

With some typical tongue-in-cheek humour, Norris added: "Fair to play Carlos. His years and years and years of experience and lessons and grinding away to be a good golfer, finally I got to see it paying off.

"So I congratulated him. He deserved the win. He played better than I did, so full respect to that."