McLaren announced on Wednesday the renewal of Lando Norris after signing a new contract until the end of the 2025 season, a bold move by the Woking team that has thus managed to secure the long-term future of the British driver.
Norris had already signed a contract renewal in May of last year, but after his great performance in 2021, the team wanted to reward him with a new agreement that is more beneficial for both parties.
Both Norris and McLaren said this latest signing is a great show of confidence and an important step forward for the team’s stability, as well as being a move that will help prevent the interest of any of the rival teams in signing the #4.
In reference to whether he had already received interest from a rival team, Norris acknowledged the following: “I had little conversations here and there. But that’s it, nothing more.”
“As soon as something came up, I would directly contact Andreas [Seidl] to talk about what the future holds and so on.”
“There were little talks with various teams, yes, there is no point in lying about it, but nothing that has gone very far really.”
Norris would not reveal which teams had inquired about his services, but said “you could probably guess easily.”
On the other side of the scale, team principal Andreas Seidl said he was not aware of any team that was really interested in Lando, but explained that the new contract was a very important step in helping planning. long-term from McLaren .
“Last year’s announcement was just an extension of an existing contract that was renewed for two more seasons,” Seidl said.
“If we look at the plan we have in place, we know that despite the steps forward we’ve made in previous years, we still have a long way to go.”
“We also know that after all of our organizational and cultural changes, that’s the plan that we have to follow on the infrastructure side, we just need more time to continue to grow as a team and benefit from all of those changes.”
“In order to achieve our goal, which is to get back to a position where we can fight for wins every weekend, having Lando with us will give us that consistency and continuity in the driver line-up that will be one of the big keys.”
“Of course, ensuring that Lando is with us until the end of 2025 is very important,” concluded the McLaren team principal.
