Norris has signed a monster new deal. This is what it means for Piastri

Reigning F1 world champion Lando Norris has signed a monster contract extension that will keep him at McLaren until at least 2030.

The team announced the new deal on Saturday (AEST), which has multi-year options that could mean he stays at the team until well into the next decade.

Norris announced the news personally to staff at the McLaren factory during the team’s annual family and friends open day.

“McLaren is my home, and I’m very pleased to be signing a new contract to keep me with the team until at least 2030,” Norris said.

“When I started this journey nine years ago, I was clear about the goals I wanted to achieve: to get McLaren back to the front and to win championships.

“We’ve achieved that goal, but we want more, we want to keep on winning, and we know as a team that we’re capable of achieving it.

“I can’t wait to get back in the car in Monza and I’m very excited about what the future holds for us, both over the rest of this season, and in the coming years.”

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Australia’s next Piastri has exposed a glaring issue with F1’s pathway

Norris joined McLaren as a development driver in 2017, and earned a promotion to the race team for 2019. Now in his eighth season with the team, he is already the longest-serving McLaren driver by number of races.

His existing contract wasn’t up until the end of next season. As a part of the contract extension, he was also gifted the MCL39 car he drove to his maiden title last season.

For Aussie F1 fans, the timing of the announcement – Monday marks 12 months since Oscar Piastri’s most recent grand prix victory – will bring nothing but painful memories of what could have been.

What it means for our Oscar

While McLaren famously do not have No.1 and No.2 drivers, there is a belief in the paddock McLaren has been and will remain Norris’ team as long as he’s driving for them.

It’s understandable – McLaren funded the back-end of his junior career, and he rewarded their faith in him by delivering the team’s first drivers’ title since Lewis Hamilton in 2008.

Piastri, on the other hand, was an Alpine junior manager Mark Webber was able to shoehorn into McLaren when a lawyer with the French outfit famously missed a straightforward paperwork deadline that would have kept him at the team long-term.

So while Piastri is contracted with the team until the end of 2028, this deal for Norris will do nothing to quell that sentiment.

But that aside, Piasti’s bigger issue right now is the fact he’s clearly taken a step back in performance this season.

Tyre management was his Achilles heel in 2023 and 2024, but he seemed to get on top of that in 2025. That was until a brilliant piece of engineering in McLaren’s brake ducts was banned in the off-season.

In layman’s terms, the brake trickery reduced brake temperatures, which by extension lowered tyre temperatures. It apparently masked Piastri’s tyre management deficit.

There is also the fact these engine regulations do not suit his driving style, and the changes required are wholesale, which takes time.

McLaren team principal Andrea Stella said Piastri’s issues are “purely technical” rather than anything mental.

Still in Layman’s terms, the car’s computer is trying to optimise power deployment based on its own learnings from multiple laps. They’re subtle differences that might only add up to a tenth or two per lap, but the gap is incredibly difficult to recover.

In Japan, Piastri looked a genuine chance at winning. He finished second. A third place at the next race in Miami in May remains his most recent podium. Norris has won the last two grands prix.

While Piastri will more than likely be relegated to a support role behind Norris for the remainder of this season, he’ll be hoping to at least be contending for race victories by the season finale in order to set himself up for a potential championship challenge next season.

The next race in Monza was the scene of the infamous swap last season after Norris was hampered by a slow stop which allowed Piastri to move ahead. It triggered conspiracies the now-British team was doing its best to gift its British driver the championship.

The best thing Piastri can do next weekend is win, or at least be in position to do so and force McLaren to again ask him to move aside for Norris.

It would be a reminder to the team he is still more than capable of leading the team himself.

Practice for the Italian Grand Prix at the famous Monza circuit begins on Friday.