Could good friends Max Verstappen and Lando Norris one day drive for the same Formula 1 team? Max admits the topic has come up in conversation between them; Verstappen also explains how lessons from his father Jos’ rollercoaster F1 career have affected his own
Last Updated: 29/08/23 6:01am
Max Verstappen says he and Lando Norris have “talked about” becoming team-mates later in their Formula 1 careers.
Norris, widely considered to be the best driver on the grid without a race win, has previously been linked with a move to Verstappen’s dominant Red Bull team.
However, Norris is contracted to McLaren until the end of 2025, and the team’s remarkable mid-season resurgence has quietened talk that the 23-year-old could seek an early exit from his deal.
Verstappen, who won Sunday’s Dutch Grand Prix to equal Sebastian Vettel’s record of nine successive F1 victories, currently drives alongside Sergio Perez, whose Red Bull contract expires at the end of the 2024 season.
“We talk about it,” said Verstappen, who has previously described Norris as his “best friend” on the grid, in an interview with Sky Sports in Italy.
“But he’s contracted to McLaren for a long time.
“We’ll see what happens in the future.”
Asked who his dream team-mate would be, Verstappen opted for a sentimental approach, choosing his father, Jos, who drove in F1 from 1994-2003.
“For me personally, dream team, if I could choose and could bring people back, it would be with my dad.”
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Max on the lessons Jos taught him from his career
Not too dissimilar to his son, Jos Verstappen arrived in F1 as a young driver with a promising reputation in the mid-1990s.
His first chance came at a title-chasing Benetton team as team-mate to Michael Schumacher for 10 races in the 1994 season.
Aged two, Max Verstappen tries out his dad’s Arrows F1 car for size at the European GP in 2000
But while he twice finished on the podium that season, he was moved to the smaller Simtek team for the following year and then spent the remainder of his 106-race career driving for teams in the midfield and towards the back of the grid, with only a handful of further points-scoring results to show for it.
“From my dad’s side, I think his career didn’t go to plan, and I think it had a lot of potential,” reflected Max.
“But again, he knew what went wrong, and he knew that it was very important to have the right people around you from a young age, to be guided in the right way.
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“And I think that’s what he did with me.
“So from all that happened in his career and what went wrong, he tried to prevent me from having really, and that’s why I think when I grew up and got all the way to Formula 1 with him by my side, it helped me a lot to prepare.
“He was constantly trying to make me aware of things, what could happen, [telling me] I need to be ready, I need to be fit, I need to also be aware of what’s going on in the paddock, you know that’s a difficult world.
“So he prepared me in a very professional way, I think from a very young age, to be ready for all certain kind of scenarios.”
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