Formula One world champion Lando Norris has committed his long-term future to McLaren, signing a new contract that will keep him with the British team until at least the end of the 2030 season. The 26-year-old announced the extension during a friends and family event at McLaren’s headquarters in Woking. Norris heads into the next phase of his career in strong form, having won the Hungarian and Dutch Grands Prix, the last two races on the calendar.
McLaren have also included an option that could extend their association with Norris beyond 2030. The Briton was presented with an MCL39 from his championship-winning campaign, a season in which he became McLaren’s first Formula One drivers’ champion since Lewis Hamilton in 2008.
“At the minute there’s really no reason to want to even put a thought into somewhere else,” he said. “I kind of want my whole career to be with McLaren because I’m happy here and I don’t want to change.
“I want to fight with McLaren even when things are not going well and I want to win with McLaren when things are going amazingly well. So yeah, I’ll be very, very happy at the end of my career to say that McLaren was the only team I’ve been with.”
Norris said the timing of the announcement was a boost for the team’s spirit, while also playing down reports about the financial value of his new agreement.
Having joined McLaren’s programme as a test and simulator driver in 2017, Norris graduated to a full-time Formula One seat with the team in 2019. Since then, he has established himself as one of the sport’s leading drivers, collecting 13 Grand Prix victories and 18 pole positions for the reigning constructors’ champions.
Reports have claimed that the new deal could make Norris the third-highest-paid driver on the grid, behind Red Bull’s Max Verstappen and Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton. One report even put his potential annual earnings at around 60 million euors (US dollars 69.6 million), although Norris dismissed suggestions that his salary was anywhere near those figures.
“I feel like I should earn as much as that,” he grinned in response to a mention of what four-time champion Verstappen and seven-time champion Hamilton might be on.
“But it’s certainly not close to the figures that I’ve been seeing online, sadly… of course it’s a bit more, as it is with any job when you kind of extend and do those things, but it’s certainly not close to the level of Lewis or Max, which in a way it shouldn’t be, because I’ve not achieved as much as what they’ve achieved in their careers.
“I’m working on it, you know. I don’t know when my next extension or renewal would be and hopefully I can then try and match it one day. I dream of seeing those figures that I’ve seen online so I’ll keep dreaming of them one day.”
Norris also revealed that other teams had shown interest in securing his services, but said he had never seriously considered leaving McLaren. After spending his entire Formula One journey with the Woking-based outfit, he felt moving elsewhere would not have been the right decision.
“Really it was quite the easiest decision I’ve had to make in my career so far,” said Norris.
The reigning F1 World Champion is currently fourth on the drivers standings with 159 points, having scored two wins this season.
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