Lando Norris makes major announcement about 2026 F1 plans after title | F1 | Sport
Lando Norris has confirmed that he will race with the number one on his McLaren next year. The Brit has the right to do so after beating Max Verstappen to the 2025 Formula 1 drivers’ title. Third place at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix on Sunday was enough to make sure he ended the season two points better off than his Red Bull rival.
And now Norris has confirmed that he will drop his number four, which he had made part of his brand, in the 2026 campaign and use the number one which Verstappen has carried since the start of the 2022 campaign. He told Sky Sports News: “It’s tradition. It’s there for a reason. It’s there because you can go and try grab it and you can work hard to try and get it.
“All of us as a team that gets to have a role in McLaren, or my car, will get to wear that with pride. It’s all my mechanics, my engineers, everyone that’s part of McLaren gets to have that acknowledgement too.
“So it’s not for me, it’s for them as well. It’s their pride, knowing that they put a lot of work and effort into everything that they can also go ‘we’re number one’. It’s not as cool when you say ‘we are number four’ so they will be even happier than I am!”
Prior to adopting the number one, Verstappen raced with the number 33 on his Red Bull. It is not yet known whether or not the Dutchman will revert to that, having expressed a desire to use the number three last raced by Daniel Ricciardo. However, he would require special dispensation to do so, as FIA rules require a drivers to have spent two full years out of F1 before their number becomes available for selection again.
While many champions adopt the number one to mark their achievement, not every driver chooses to do so. Lewis Hamilton is a seven-time world champion but has never once raced with the number one in F1, choosing instead to stick with his famous 44 which he, like Norris, has used in his own personal branding.
Norris’ title success on Sunday ended Verstappen’s 1,457-day reign as the king of F1. Remarkably, it also ended a whopping 5,505-day run during which every world champion represented either Red Bull or Mercedes. Before Norris, Jenson Button was the last driver to win the championship while not racing for either of those teams, after his 2009 success with Brawn GP.
Norris has only ever raced for one team in F1 and said after his championship success was confirmed that he had “wanted to do it with McLaren since the beginning”. He is the only F1 driver ever to win their first title having started more than 150 races for the team they enjoyed that success with.
