Lando Norris not following Max Verstappen’s lead with early F1 retirement talk

Despite Max Verstappen suggesting he may retire sooner than many thought, another young driver Lando Norris insists that is not his goal.

Two-time World Champion Verstappen recently made headlines when he suggested he may walk away from the sport at the end of his current Red Bull deal which expires in 2028 and would put the Dutchman at 31 years old.

Verstappen entered F1 at a very young age and has reached 163 races at the age of 25 but he has insisted he has other interests he wants to pursue and has no desire to race well into his 40s.

Another driver who entered the sport at a young age is McLaren’s Norris, but the 23-year-old maintains his focus for now is solely on Formula 1.

“Nothing that I’ve thought of,” he replied when asked by PlanetF1.com if he too had any goals away from F1. “My goals and everything that I think of now is, it’s just Formula 1 related.

“I don’t know if you asked Lewis [Hamilton] when he was 23 or Fernando [Alonso] when he was 23 ‘are you going to be in Formula 1 for another 15 years?’ I don’t think they could have answered that with 100% confidence.

“But every driver is different. With Max saying that he could leave, that is a very long way away and there’s no point trying to make assumptions when you can just wait and finally find out one day.

“So for now, all I think about is Formula 1, that’s all I want to achieve. My life goal is to get to where I believe I can be and where we can be as a team within Formula 1.

“When you accomplish these things, then you never know. I guess, similar to [Nico] Rosberg, he won a championship and he was out of here so it’s different for [different] people. My focus all the time is on Formula 1 now and it shall be until I say otherwise.”

Norris enters his fifth season of Formula 1 as the senior driver at McLaren following Daniel Ricciardo’s departure and Oscar Piastri’s arrival as a rookie which Norris believes gives him more responsibility in the team.

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“I think I just have more responsibility this season from within the team,” Norris replied when asked by PlanetF1.com if he would change his approach after becoming the senior driver.

“I think I already did have a big portion of that last year, being the guy who was staying within the team. A guy who could figure out and understand last year’s car slightly better and therefore try and use that for this year.

“That’s something that I can do and Oscar cannot, so I have the responsibility of bringing my knowledge and experience from Formula 1 into these years coming up.

“That’s something that Oscar will slowly, or quickly, get up to speed with.”