Lando Norris has dropped a major hint over which team he would like to join after McLaren, despite having three years left to run on his contract. The British driver is shaping up for a career-defining season with the Woking outfit, who are widely backed to be the favourites to land the Driver’s Championship and a second consecutive Constructors’ crown. But Norris admitted he has already considered which rival he would be keen to switch to given the chance, although the 25-year-old stopped himself from naming them outright.
However, he dropped a huge clue for F1 fans to mull over after conceding they were the constructor that ‘everyone’ dreams of racing for in their career. When asked who he would join if McLaren left F1, Norris told NBC News: “I can’t answer that one. I know exactly which one I would love to go to, it’s the team that everyone wants to be part of at some point in their career. But I’m very happy with McLaren.”
Norris’ remarks suggest his favoured team is Ferrari, who are historically the most prestigious in F1. He has never displayed much interest in signing for Mercedes. However, he has previously flirted with the idea of joining his close friend Max Verstappen at Red Bull in 2023.
It came after Helmut Marko revealed that Red Bull held ‘serious discussions’ with Norris over a move to sister team AlphaTauri (now rebranded as Racing Bulls) for the 2019 campaign. However, McLaren intervened and promoted Norris – who was 19 at the time – to a full-time seat on the grid.
“We had serious discussions and we had a contract ready for Lando Norris for AlphaTauri, or Toro Rosso at that time,” Marko revealed on the Inside Line F1 podcast. “Unfortunately, they [McLaren] found out. They had two contracts and then one was a clause which stopped this co-operation with Lando Norris.”
Red Bull also pursued Norris when Sergio Perez’s future was placed into question during the 2023 campaign. Norris was not a direct title threat to Verstappen and was seen as an ideal option to form a star-studded lineup. Footage from Netflix’s ‘Drive to Survive’ docuseries showed Horner admitting: “We’d certainly be interested in him. If he’s delivering, he’s not going to be short of choices. He’s just got to be sure he makes the right choice.”
Norris made a point of weighing up his future very carefully after McLaren made a dreadful start to the 2023 season, proving to be one of the slowest teams on the grid at the opener in Bahrain.
But they pulled off a dramatic turnaround with their development of the car midway through the season and convinced Norris to commit his future with a new long-term contract until 2028, which is where he looks to be staying for the foreseeable future.
