Since Norris arrived on the F1 grid in 2019, Pierre Gasly, Esteban Ocon, Carlos Sainz and George Russell have joined the list of world championship race winners. And two of those now have seats in two of the big three F1 squads.
McLaren, of course, used to be an F1 powerhouse, and Zak Brown’s team did give Norris his big break. But loyalty will surely only last so long as the Briton watches his contemporaries rack up wins and, perhaps, world titles.
As Norris tells Matt Kew this week, he still believes in McLaren and is making all the right noises. But the 23-year-old is also clear about his goals and his desire to compete at the front of F1 now.
McLaren’s recent progress stalled a little last year – it needs to make a big stride in 2023 to convince Norris he is in the right place. And we take a glance at where else he could go…
The place to be for rally fans this week will be Monte Carlo as the World Rally Championship gets under way. Reigning champion Kalle Rovanpera is surely the favourite, but Tom Howard runs through the potential challengers in our extensive preview, which also includes an interview with Ott Tanak about his new life at M-Sport and the story of the shock result on the 1983 Monte Carlo Rally.
Formula E’s season kicked off even earlier, with Jake Dennis taking a surprisingly dominant victory last weekend for the Andretti-Porsche combination. Jake Boxall-Legge was in Mexico to see the start of the Gen3 era unfold.
The rest of our team was in Birmingham for the Autosport International show. Find out about the highlights in our event coverage.
UK motorsport plays a big part of that and we bring you all the latest news in the 12-page National section. We also rate the new club series of 2022 and take a look at the fresh offerings for this year.
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