From debut to world title
Two years after his experience in the McLaren Young Driver Programme, Lando Norris made his Formula 1 debut in 2019 still as a driver for the Woking team, remaining there ever since. The Briton reached the highest point of his career last season with the victory of the world title, the first since Hamilton’s in 2008 at McLaren.
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Always at McLaren
Norris’s intention remains to stay at McLaren in the coming years, or even to end his career with the same team. This intention was expressed by the 26-year-old himself in the podcast Beyond the Grid, with his future seemingly out of question: “Do I see myself as a driver for only one team? Most likely – he answered – because I don’t know how long I will stay in Formula 1. My contract is still valid for several years, so I know I won’t be leaving soon.”
The mystery
The future, however, remains unpredictable, so much so that Norris himself added the possibility of facing a challenge elsewhere in Formula 1, but without naming the team: “If there is a place I would like to go, there is only one, and that’s it. There is only one place I would really be interested in, but it is a very, very distant future.”
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Love for McLaren, but..
An answer that implied Norris is still determined to continue at McLaren in the coming years, and that he is not interested in entering the driver market soon: “For now, I am fully committed to McLaren, the only team I will ever want to race for, and I consider them like a family – he continued – I want to do as much as possible with McLaren for as long as possible, five, ten years, and I am very, very proud and happy to say that, more than many other drivers in the history of Formula 1. My goal is to stay with McLaren forever, but I also love winning. So, until that moment comes, you never know what will happen. Even if I don’t win, you know, I haven’t won for six years, I could have gone elsewhere, and I didn’t, because at the end of the day, I just want to have fun. It’s been like that from the start, honestly. It’s easy to think you have to be ruthless and do all sorts of things, but I will always give my best with McLaren, and even if sometimes we don’t win, it doesn’t necessarily mean I want to go to another team. I just want to be with the people I get along with, that’s the only thing I really care about.”
