Lando Norris signs new contract with McLaren and dreams of finishing his F1 career with the team

Formula 1 world champion Lando Norris has committed his long-term future to McLaren, signing a new deal 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 stage of his career in strong form having won the Hungarian and Dutch Grands Prix, the last two races on the calendar.

McLaren also included an option that could extend their association with Norris beyond 2030. The Briton was presented with the MCL39 from his championship-winning campaign, the season in which he became McLaren’s first Formula 1 champion since Lewis Hamilton in 2008.

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“There’s really no reason to want or think about anything else at this point,” he said. “I want my whole career to be at McLaren because I’m happy here and I don’t want to change.

“I want to fight with McLaren when things are not going well and I want to win with McLaren when things are going amazingly well. So yes, at the end of my career I will be very, very happy to say that McLaren was the only team I was with.”

Norris said the timing of the announcement was a boost to the team’s spirit while downplaying reports of the financial value of his new contract.

After joining the McLaren program as a test and simulator driver in 2017, Norris graduated to a full-time F1 seat with the team in 2019. He has since established himself as one of the sport’s premier drivers, collecting 13 Grand Prix wins and 18 pole positions for the reigning constructors’ champions.

Reports claimed 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 (US$69.6 million), although Norris rejected suggestions that his salary was approaching those figures.

“I feel like I should be earning that much,” he smirked in response to the mention of where four-time champion Verstappen and seven-time champion Hamilton could be.

“But it’s certainly nowhere near the numbers I’ve seen on the internet, unfortunately… of course it’s a bit more like any job when you expand and do things like that, but it’s certainly nowhere near the level of Lewis or Max, which in a way it shouldn’t be because I haven’t achieved as much as they’ve achieved in their careers.”

“I’m working on it, you know. I don’t know when my next extension or renewal will be, and I hope to try to match it one day. I dream of seeing those characters that I’ve seen online, so I’ll dream about 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 F1 journey with the Woking-based outfit, he felt a move elsewhere would not be the right decision.

“It was really the easiest decision I’ve had to make in my career so far,” Norris said.

The reigning F1 world champion is currently fourth in the drivers’ standings with 159 points, he has two wins this season.

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Published on:

August 29, 2026 3:53 PM IST