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Scotland’s Mitchell Lawrie was denied in his bid to become the youngest-ever winner of a world darts title by Dutchman Jimmy van Schie, who tipped the runner-up to be “the future of darts”.

The 15-year-old Lawrie, the first teenager to reach a WDF World Championship final, was beaten 6-3 at Lakeside Country Club.

Lawrie has drawn comparisons with world number one Luke Littler, who reached the PDC World Darts Championship final on his debut at the age of 16 in 2024.

He impressed this week with an unmatched tally of 56 maximum 180s across his nine matches, and maintained a three-dart average of 93.15.

But tournament top seed Van Schie battled back from 3-0 down in the final, winning six sets without reply to claim victory on Sunday.

Van Schie told S4C: “He is such a phenomenal player. He’s a power scorer, so mature for his age and the sky is the limit for him.

Lawrie had earlier been crowned WDF Open Youth World Champion in Surrey, after beating Germany’s Florian Preis 4-2 in the first final of the day.

He said that victory, which made him the first Scottish winner of the trophy, meant “everything”.

Deta Hedman ended her long wait to win the women’s event for the first time.

Having lost each of her three previous finals in 2012, 2014 and 2016, Hedman, 66, defeated Dutch opponent Lerena Rietbergen 4-1.

Hedman’s triumph came in the absence of 2024 winner Beau Greaves, who has accepted a place in the PDC World Darts Championship, which starts on Thursday at Alexandra Palace.

Zehra Gemi became the first-ever Turkish darts world champion in the girls’ event.

Brackley Town know all about being patient – they finally won promotion to the National League earlier this year after reaching the play-offs six times between 2018 and 2024.

In the FA Cup, the Saints have reached round two on five occasions without managing to go any further, but maybe this could also be the year to put that right.

They will take on Burton Albion from League One on Monday (19:30 GMT) and unlike their four previous second-round ties, this one will be at their St James Park ground.

“I think it’s huge [being at home] in terms of going on to win the tie – I think it will play a massive part,” said Brackley boss Gavin Cowan.

“Our fans are incredible. When you think about the ratio between our population and the people that turn up every week, they come out in their droves for these games.

“We have evolved from a community club into a professional community club. The way things are done now around the club have improved dramatically.

“We are now in line with how clubs in the National League should be, on and off the field. That’s taken a lot of growth, a lot of time and effort from some brilliant people around the club.

Promotion in May meant Brackley did not have to enter the competition until the final qualifying round and following a 1-1 draw at Woking, they secured their place in the main draw with a thumping 6-2 home win in the replay.

Experienced forwards Matt Lowe and Danny Waldron both scored twice against opponents reduced to 10 men by a first-half red card, before Scott Pollock and Kyle Morrison added late goals to underline their victory at St James Park.

Lowe was also on target against Notts County in the first round and Brackley will again look to him as they plot an upset against Burton.

“He’s huge for us in terms of his leadership, his character, his endeavour. Big moments you have to be ready for, and Matt’s been there for them,” said Cowan.

Despite the modern reliance on data analysis, Cowan is a firm believer that ‘the eyes don’t lie’ and has been to watch the Brewers in the build-up to their cup collision.

“We’ve looked at Burton in great detail. You’ve got a real top football club there, a squad with a high skillset,” he told BBC Radio Northampton.

“We took in the game against Wigan the other night (Burton lost 1-0) and we know what we’re up against and we know what we’re going to have to do if we want to win the game.

“It’s really important to try and get eyes [on them]. We’re really fortunate now where we can watch games via laptops but there’s nothing like being there in reality.

“It was great to take in a game the other night and to learn something as well, understand about them and what they are and how they’re going to set up.

Despite the two-division gap between the sides, Cowan says the chance of an upset in front of TV cameras is there if Brackley show the right mentality.

“Ours will be at the highest level we can reach,” he said. “We’ve just got to hope that mentality then manifests itself in the physical world and we can run faster than them, jump higher than them, run further than them.

“This is the test the FA Cup brings. I suppose it’s a level playing field, you can forget about the league, it’s a one off so go out and try to be the best version of yourselves and try to win the game.”

Brackley have been in poor form of late, losing their past five league games to leave them precariously perched just above the relegation places.

But Bowyer’s Burton have also lost their way a little and were beaten in their past two matches after winning three of the previous four.

“Our form hasn’t been great in the league but this is the FA Cup – anything can happen,” added Cowan.

“In the history of the FA Cup there’s been many an upset, we’ve managed to create one [against Notts County] and want a second – there’s no reason why we can’t.”

The adrenaline beginning to drain out of him, but the euphoria of winning a first world title still very much present, Lando Norris was in reflective mood as he discussed what his first Formula 1 drivers’ title meant to him.

“I just won it my way,” the McLaren driver said. “I’m happy I could go out and be myself.”

“I feel like I have just managed to win it the way I wanted to win it, which was not by being someone I’m not. Not trying to be as aggressive as Max [Verstappen] or as forceful as other champions might have been in the past – whatever it may be. My style of just trying to be a good person and a good team member.”

The 26-year-old Briton did a lot of talking after climbing out of his car in Abu Dhabi, where his third-place finish in the 2025 season finale ensured he beat Verstappen to the championship by just two points. That is the way of things in F1, where drivers have to finish their media commitments before getting down to the business of celebrating their success.

It has not been easy. There have been bumps in the road. Some even feel Red Bull’s Verstappen would have been a more worthy champion, given the scale of his comeback in the final third of the season.

While Verstappen mounted one of the all-time great comebacks from the start of September, Norris weathered an early rough patch, and rode his own concurrent wave of momentum to achieve his lifetime’s ambition in a race that, while tense, it always felt like he had it under control.

After he celebrated on the podium, where he was drenched in champagne by race-winner Verstappen and McLaren team-mate Oscar Piastri, as the three title contenders finished at the front just as they had started the race, you could almost feel Norris coming to terms with his achievement in real time as he discussed how he had got to where he had.

There were some very touching comments about how much it meant to him to make so many people who were important to him happy, especially his parents and his colleagues at McLaren.

“I feel proud but not because I’m going to wake up tomorrow and go, ‘I beat everyone,'” he said. “I’m not proud because I get to just say I’m a world champion. I’m proud because I feel like I made a lot of other people happy.”

And as he talked, he began to open up on who he is, his honesty, his determination to be true to himself and his wish to be open about his feelings, even the difficult ones, a trait for which he has been criticised from time to time.

“Could I have gone out and been more of that person you probably want me to be at times? I could have done,” he said.

Norris started the season as favourite, after McLaren’s strong end to 2024, but after winning the first race, he went through a rough patch and Piastri moved into a comfortable lead.

Norris was not at one with the car, was finding it difficult to feel the front axle when he was trying to take it to the limit in qualifying. That led to mistakes – even a big crash in Saudi Arabia – and when you start behind in modern F1, you tend to finish there.

But he and McLaren worked at it. The team came up with a tweak to the front suspension aimed at improving feel. It was a small thing. It made a small difference, but a barely perceptible one.

From there, he slowly improved, began to build momentum, but it was more about the work he was putting in behind the scenes.

He knew what he needed to be better at, and he worked on it, on adapting to the car, on not being alarmed that it felt slightly different from what he wanted.

It was a mental approach as much as a change in driving, and slowly it began to make a difference.

“It started after I had that kind of bad run in race two, three, four, five, six, that kind of area,” he said. “Or certainly when it was like, ‘All right, my way is not working. I’ve got to understand things differently. I’ve got to speak to more people. I’ve got to understand what I’m thinking, why I’m thinking it. Why am I doing this? Why am I getting tense in qualifying? Why am I making the decisions that I’m making?’ Whatever it may be.

“Certainly, the bad run of results and lack of performance – not speed, because I think the speed’s always there – but lack of putting things together when I had the capability of putting things together, allowed or opened up the doors to go and understand: “OK, I need to do more than just try again next weekend. I need to try and understand things on a deeper level.

He was 34 points adrift of Piastri after the Dutch Grand Prix at the end of August, with only nine races remaining. That was when the run of form that ultimately took him to the title started.

But while the outside perception was that this had freed Norris up and allowed him to just go for it, he says it was the opposite.

“No, it didn’t allow me to relax,” he said. “Thirty-four points against a guy who had the same car, who was doing an incredible job, who I know is incredibly great, it didn’t fill me with confidence and (make me) think I have nothing to lose now.

“I just had to step up, what I was doing away from the track, the people I was working with. I had to involve people to that group, I had to work harder, I was on a simulator, I had to change my approaches, I had to change my style of driving, I had to dig deep, to unlock more of my ideas.

“I’m trying to understand more things quicker, in a more advanced way than I ever have before.”

Team principal Andrea Stella said: “The level of Formula 1 drivers nowadays is so high, to compete at this level, the only way to stay in the quest is to keep evolving continuously.

“If I look at Lando, definitely there was a lot that was taken away from the quest last year, even if it didn’t go to the last race. I think Lando elevated his sense of, almost his status, like, ‘I can compete with Max.’

“This season there was another important turning point, which is the way Lando, and we talk specifically about him for a moment, responded to the difficulties we had at the start of the season. There was the start of a process which was structured, it was holistic, it was involving the personal development, professional, driving, racecraft.

“It makes me particularly glad that Lando could capitalise on this, because this has been something that not necessarily I’ve seen many times before, in terms of the amount of work, the people involved, and the rate of development.”

For Stella’s boss, McLaren Racing chief executive officer Zak Brown, this was a personal achievement as well as a professional one. Brown started backing Norris on a management level when he was 14 (like to profile), supported him through the junior ranks and brought him to McLaren.

For his family, there have been sacrifices, as his Belgian mother Cisca told BBC Radio 5 Live after the race.

“It’s overwhelming, emotionally draining, but we backed Lando during all the good and bad times. We always stood on his side, and not just Lando, but it was all the children. It’s a dream come true for Lando.

“We didn’t push the children; they had chosen what they wanted to do, and we supported them. It does take sacrifices because the girls and the boys have been growing up almost separate. It was passing ships in the night, they chose what they wanted to do and we supported it.

“It takes its toll because I missed Lando growing up. When he was eight, he started to compete. It took him all over the place, but Adam (Lando Norris’ dad) stood on his side, and I missed him badly. I am still missing him. I don’t see him often.

“He can do what he wants, he is a grown-up man and the last six months, he has changed and become stronger in his mind as well.”

As he came to the end of his remarks post-race, Norris was still reflecting on the difficulties, and how they had helped turn adversity into the ultimate success.

“If I look back at it from the first half of the season,” he said, “not the most impressive.

“Certainly times I’ve made some mistakes, I’ve made some bad judgments, I’ve made my errors.