Formula One world champion Lando Norris has signed a new long-term contract with McLaren that will keep him at the team until at least the end of 2030, extending one of the longest-running driver-team partnerships on the current grid. The 26-year-old Briton’s previous agreement was understood to run until the end of 2027, but McLaren has moved early to secure the future of the driver who delivered its first world drivers’ championship in 17 years last season. The new contract also contains a multi-year option that could extend Norris’s stay beyond 2030.
Norris said there had been interest from rival teams but he did not seriously consider leaving McLaren. “McLaren is my home,” he said, adding that his ambition was now to win more championships with the team. He told BBC Sport that renewing was “quite an easy yes” and that he did not even explore potential moves elsewhere.
From junior driver to world champion
Norris joined McLaren’s junior programme in 2017 as a 17-year-old test and simulator driver before being promoted to a Formula One race seat in 2019. He has since made a team-record 163 Grand Prix starts for McLaren, collecting 13 victories, 18 pole positions and 48 podium finishes. His first F1 victory came at Miami in 2024 before his breakthrough 2025 campaign culminated in the drivers’ world championship.
Norris played a central role in McLaren’s resurgence after years away from the front of the grid. The team won consecutive constructors’ championships in 2024 and 2025, while Norris’s title last season made him McLaren’s first drivers’ champion since Lewis Hamilton in 2008.
McLaren will also give Norris an MCL39 — the car he raced during his championship-winning 2025 season — to mark his achievements with the team.
Loyalty despite difficult 2026 start
Norris’s decision comes despite McLaren enduring a difficult beginning to the 2026 season following the introduction of sweeping new Formula One regulations.
Rather than prompting him to consider alternatives, Norris said the challenging period reinforced his desire to remain with the people with whom he had built his career. He pointed to the relationship developed through McLaren’s earlier struggles and subsequent return to championship-winning form.
The Briton has recently helped lead McLaren’s recovery, winning the Hungarian and Dutch Grands Prix in succession. His victory in the Netherlands last weekend was the 13th of his Formula One career.
Team principal Andrea Stella said the extension provided McLaren with important continuity and reflected the team’s confidence in its long-term direction. CEO Zak Brown said Norris had been instrumental in taking McLaren “from the back of the grid” to consecutive constructors’ championships and a drivers’ title.
Norris-Piastri partnership secured
The deal also gives McLaren considerable stability in its driver line-up. Norris’s teammate Oscar Piastri is contracted until the end of 2028 after agreeing his own extension last year.
By the time Norris’s new contract expires at the end of 2030, he will be 31 and will have completed 12 consecutive seasons as a McLaren Formula One race driver — matching the length of Lewis Hamilton’s stint with Mercedes.
Norris has indicated that his association with McLaren could last even longer. He said he would be happy to spend his entire Formula One career with the team, although he acknowledged retirement remained a long way off.
The timing of the agreement also removes Norris from speculation surrounding the driver market ahead of the coming seasons. With his immediate future settled, the reigning champion said his attention would remain on McLaren’s recovery this year and the pursuit of further race victories and world championships.