“We know he can pull it off when it matters”- McLaren denies to name Lando Norris as their number one driver after the extension of his contract

Lando Norris extended his contract with McLaren until the end of 2025 but the team has ruled out having him as their number one driver.

Lando Norris signed a long-term contract with McLaren until the end of 2025. He had been with the team since 2019 and delivered a spectacular performance in the 2021 season.

Norris finished the 2021 championship at sixth position in the drivers’ standings. He defeated his teammate Daniel Ricciardo could only score enough points to secure the eighth rank.

As per reports, McLaren withdrew a massive fund from its vault to lock in Norris in the team. Philip Duncan reported that the Briton would be earning around £20million-a-season.

A big-money day in #F1. Red Bull’s new title partnership deal with Oracle is understood to be worth half-a-billion US dollars (£370million) over five years, while Lando Norris’ new McLaren contract will pocket him up to £20m-a-season. 💰 💰

— Philip Duncan (@PhilDuncanF1) February 9, 2022

In the McLaren lineup, the 22-year-old right now has a longer contract than his Australian teammate. However, when asked if the young Brit is the favourite to lead the outfit to title success, team principal Andreas Seidl ruled out the idea.

He said, “If you are after, ‘Is McLaren having a number one driver?’, for example, definitely not. My job is to go with the team. To make sure we always provide both drivers equal opportunities to do well on track and then battle it out on track.”

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Signing Lando Norris was natural for the team

Seidl praised Norris for being a good representative for the team away from the racing track. Norris had been aligned with the team since 2017 and took up the role of the full-time driver in 2019.

After seeing his performance in all these years, Seidl said that it was very obvious for the team to extend his contract. He admitted that the team was very keen to continue to work with Norris for as long as possible.

“Of course, with Lando now being with the team since 2017, going into his fourth racing season now with us, showing last year that – with the right team and with the right car, in his third year in Formula 1 – he can score pole positions and he can fight for race wins,” Seidl explained.

“It was just natural for us, that we obviously try to lock him in as long as possible here at McLaren, because, the most important thing is that we are fully aligned also with the timelines in terms of the journey we are in.”

“And therefore we’re very happy to know that we have Lando [for] four more years as a driver, which is the most important thing obviously. We know he can pull it off when it matters.”

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