Lando Norris is under contract with McLaren until the end of 2025 while Oscar Piastri has signed a new contract until 2026; Andrea Stella says best way to keep Norris is for McLaren's performance to match their expectations; watch Japanese GP on Sky Sports F1 this weekend
Thursday 21 September 2023 08:52, UK
McLaren team principal Andrea Stella says they are having "good conversations" with Lando Norris about his future at the team after extending Oscar Piastri's contract until the end of 2026.
Australian Piastri has been rewarded with a new three-year contract after a fine rookie season in F1 in which he has so far secured six top-10 finishes and also finished second in the Belgian GP Sprint.
Norris' present deal expires at the end of 2025 and the 23-year-old has admirers up and down the paddock, while both he and Max Verstappen have publicly spoken about the possibility of being team-mates in future.
Stella says McLaren are already speaking to Norris about extending his stay and explained how the team hopes to show the British driver he can achieve his ambitions with the team.
"We're certainly having conversations with Lando. They are good conversations, we are happy with how these conversations are going," Stella said ahead of this weekend's Japanese GP, which is live on Sky Sports F1.
"In terms of getting the vote of confidence, we went back to the facts. Certainly we expressed our love, if you want, in terms of this human element and also as a team you can want mates to be with you on the journey especially when the journey is so tough.
"But you also need to talk about facts. Like what is the foundation for the future why you can give us your vote of confidence.
"With Lando we are doing exactly the same, trying to prove as much as possible on track that what we say kind of realises and trying to create a sense of 'this is going to continue over the coming years'.
"I would be at a discomfort myself, having a conversation with a driver where I'm trying to persuade him playing cards I don't have in my hands. I don't want to find myself in a situation where a driver said 'hey you said this would have happened, it's not happening'. I don't want to be in this position so my conversation, Zak's conversation they are genuine assessments of facts to the best of our knowledge.
"We don't need to buy people in, we want people to give us the vote of confidence to stay with us genuinely truly believing in the journey together with McLaren."
Asked if it had been the team's intention to ensure both Norris and Piastri's contract would not expire at the same time, Stella said: "We didn't make this kind of consideration in relation to 2026.
"We are optimistic that this pair of drivers will be the pair of drivers at McLaren for a long time."
Later asked about his future in the drivers' press conference, Norris stressed talks were still in their very early stages.
"There are always things now and then [regarding talks beyond 2025]," Norris said.
"I've always said I want to win with McLaren and I think we're getting closer and closer to achieving that. And not just win races but win championships, both driver and constructors.
"I want to do it with McLaren, I'm very happy there. So if I was to spend 10-15 years there I'm not going to ever say no and I think that is something I would look forward to.
"But I'm very much just concentrating on this year, next year and 2025. There are still two-and-a-half years to try and progress and we'll see then.
"Things every now and then but nothing more than that."
Norris also congratulated Piastri on his new contract and admitted it was "not a nice thing" how much the 22-year-old has been pushing him this season.
"Congrats to him. I think any contract that lasts a bit longer in Formula 1 is a great thing," Norris said.
"He's performed, he's done everything he's needed to and exceeded most people's expectations from what he's been able to achieve already this season.
"He's pushed me a lot and that's not a nice thing, not what I want but he's done a very good job.
"So congrats to him on a few more years, we've had a fun first half of the season and a lot of progress. For him to be part of that progress and to hopefully continue that on into next year, 2025 and 2026 for himself."
Asked how strong McLaren's driver line-up was compared to the whole grid, Norris replied: "The strongest."
Stella explained that while Piastri's new deal was only announced on Wednesday, an agreement had been reached much earlier in the season given his impressive performances.
"It is a new contract because it became very apparent for us that we wanted to secure this prospect and we wanted to realise the full extent of the collaboration.
"It came at the point in which it was very apparent for us that Oscar is the right driver for McLaren because of many, many reasons. This has been clear to us very early. The announcement comes now but the agreement was found pretty early on because what we needed to assess, it became clear and apparent to us very soon.
"I'm happy to say the same was on Oscar's side. It was recognised by both parties that this is the collaboration that should lead both parties, from a team point of view and driver point of view, into the future.
"We wanted to present facts. The facts were what the team has been capable of recently - even though this conversation happened some time ago. Already some time ago we not only we had seen the improvements on track but we had also seen that the development kept being good which is what led to the Singapore upgrade and what seems to lead onto next year's car which in the background seems promising.
"The 2026 confirmation on the power unit is quite advanced also. We are very happy with the conversations for 2026 have taken and like this is making sense for us, this was making sense for Oscar as well. I would say it was an easy decision from both sides."
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