Lando Norris feels it’d be ‘amazing’ if 38-year-old was Max Verstappen’s Red Bull teammate

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McLaren driver Lando Norris feels it would be ‘amazing’ if Lewis Hamilton joined Max Verstappen at Red Bull as the Mercedes star would be a bigger test than Sergio Perez.

The 2023 Formula 1 season has often been the Verstappen show as the 26-year-old strolled to his third drivers’ championship. Red Bull would even still be the constructors’ champions without the 258 points Perez has scored. Verstappen has scored 524 across the 20 rounds.

Perez is a distant second to Verstappen in the drivers’ championship as the 33-year-old bids to hold off Hamilton. He has a 32-point lead over the 38-year-old ahead of the Las Vegas GP this week. It would be Red Bull’s first-ever one-two finish in a drivers’ championship to date.

Verstappen has made light work of Perez’s challenge for the Formula 1 title

Verstappen has extracted everything and more from the dominant car Red Bull produced for the 2023 Formula 1 season. But Perez has regularly failed to rival his teammate and has also often struggled to deliver competitive drives. His qualifying form has been particularly poor.

But Perez should remain Verstappen’s teammate at Red Bull for the 2024 Formula 1 season. The Mexican has a contract with the Milton Keynes outfit through next year after signing an extension in May 2022. Although team principal Christian Horner is watching other drivers.

Norris feels Hamilton and Verstappen as teammates would be ‘amazing’

Horner admitted to Sky Sports in September that Red Bull are watching Norris as a potential replacement for Perez. The McLaren driver is under contract in Woking through 2025, when Hamilton and George Russell will also be in the final year of their new deals with Mercedes.

The Silver Arrows locked Hamilton and Russell down with new contracts in August. Hamilton was otherwise a free agent at the end of this year. The Formula 1 driver market may explode in 2024, nonetheless, with Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc’s Ferrari deals ending next year.

Norris believes Sainz, Leclerc, Russell and Fernando Alonso would all give Verstappen a hard test as the Dutchman’s teammate. The McLaren driver would also like to share a garage with Verstappen one day. But Norris feels it would be ‘amazing’ if Hamilton was with Verstappen.

“I would like to be one at some point,” Norris admitted, via quotes by the Mirror. “Who else could it be? It would be nice if it was Lewis, it would be amazing to see him. Or Fernando, or Carlos, or Charles or Russell?

“They’re all great drivers who you know would make it tougher for him. There have always been rumours with me and other drivers.”

Red Bull are very unlikely to ever study a star-studded line-up of Verstappen and Hamilton in the future. Sparks would likely fly on and off the track by pairing the rivals in the same team. They came to blows several times through a fierce fight for the 2021 drivers’ championship.