Christian Horner admits Red Bull ‘keeping an eye’ on 23-year-old Formula 1 star

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Christian Horner has admitted that Red Bull are keeping an eye on Lando Norris amid McLaren negotiating a new contract with their driver past the 2025 Formula 1 season.

The Milton Keynes team are facing a decision over their driver line-up after 2024 with Sergio Perez struggling for form. He started this year with promise after two wins over the first four Grand Prix. But the 33-year-old’s dreams of challenging for the title turned into a nightmare.

Perez’s horrors continued at last Sunday’s Japanese GP when the Mexican retired twice. But Max Verstappen winning from McLaren teammates Norris and Oscar Piastri meant Red Bull still sealed the constructors’ championship. Verstappen would top the standings on his own.

Perez struggles at Red Bull as Norris dazzles with McLaren

Verstappen has scored 400 of Red Bull’s 623 points in 2023 with Perez a distant second in the drivers’ championship. Perez has also only taken a podium finish in four of the last eight Grand Prix. He has further only scored 97 points since the Canadian GP to Verstappen’s 205.

Norris, meanwhile, utilised McLaren’s first major upgrade package to finish fourth in Austria. The 23-year-old has since taken four podium finishes with second places in Britain, Hungary, Singapore and Japan. He has also now claimed 103 points through the past eight Grand Prix.

What has Horner now said about tracking Norris’ contract?

Perez’s struggles – especially in qualifying – have raised serious doubts over his future with Red Bull. He is only under contract at the Milton Keynes outfit through until the end of 2024. He also faces fierce internal competition in Daniel Ricciardo, Liam Lawson and Yuki Tsunoda.

But Red Bull team principal, Horner, admits that the outfit are also monitoring other drivers, including McLaren star Norris. He is a big fan of the Bristol-born driver, who has a contract in Woking to the end of 2025. McLaren are also having ‘good conversations’ about a new deal.

“Lando’s a great driver,” Horner told Sky Sports. “He’s a big talent, big personality and, of course, he’s one of those drivers that you keep an eye on. But there’s many drivers that you keep an eye on, as well.

“There’s a generation of drivers out there at the moment that have got a huge amount of talent. Now, being Max’s teammate is never going to be easy and some drivers may be up for that challenge, some may not be.

“But, of course, as well as the drivers we have in-house, we keep an eye on all the driver market. As you can imagine, there’s quite a bit of interest from certain sectors about driving a Red Bull car.”

Journalist Christian Menath also reported in August that Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko can imagine Norris driving alongside Verstappen. But Horner would need to present McLaren an extremely enticing package for them to let the Briton leave their superb line-up with Piastri.