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Lando Norris has signed a new contract which McLaren say will keep him at the team “until at least the end of 2026”.<\/b><\/p>\n
The 24-year-old Briton was already contracted to McLaren until the end of 2025. The team did not reveal the exact duration of his new deal.<\/p>\n
Norris, who was of interest to a number of other teams, said committing to McLaren was “quite an easy decision”.<\/p>\n
He said he was “more confident than ever” of winning a world title with the Woking-based team.<\/p>\n
Norris and McLaren had an impressive second half to last season. After starting 2023 with one of the slowest cars in the field, they made a massive step with an upgrade at the ninth race of the season, the Austrian Grand Prix.<\/p>\n
From then on, for the final 14 races of the season, Norris was the second-highest scoring driver behind dominant world champion Max Verstappen of Red Bull.<\/p>\n
Norris said he felt an emotional pull to McLaren as the team who gave him his shot at F1, and referred to them as “like a family”. <\/p>\n
But he added that their turnaround under new team principal Andrea Stella, who was appointed in December 2022, was key in convincing him to commit so early to a new deal.<\/p>\n
“The turnaround was a big part of it,” Norris said in a news conference on Friday. <\/p>\n
“Of course, over the last few years there have been a lot of tough ones. I have still enjoyed it, but every now and then you have that little question of: ‘Is this the place to be to achieve that next goal?’<\/p>\n
“Every driver has it. ‘Is this the place I want to be, the best place I can be?’ So of course in the back of my head there was: ‘Are we improving as much as we should? Am I giving myself the best opportunities?’<\/p>\n
“But with how we and Andrea turned things around and how the whole environment is at McLaren currently, that’s a big thing which swings it in the direction at McLaren because it is also results-led. “<\/p>\n
Norris said that without McLaren’s progress through 2023, he would have been likely to wait until 2025 before deciding on this future.<\/p>\n
“There are not many other things you can be guaranteed or assured of with any other teams,” he said. “It comes back to where will I be happiest and where will I be most confident I can achieve the World Championship? But now I am more confident than ever in saying it’s going to be McLaren.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n