THE PULL OF THE BULL

Lando Norris has been on Red Bull’s

radar for several years, and Sergio Pérez’s struggles made an approach by the world champion team a real possibility, even though until recently Norris was under contract to Mclaren until the end of 2025.

Little wonder Mclaren CEO Zak Brown made the relatively unusual move of tying up an extension, believed to be two further years, now rather than waiting for Milton Keynes to try to whistle his driver out from under him.

Red Bull wants Pérez to act as effective support for Max Verstappen and to see him improve his qualifying. If he can’t, Red Bull will look for an alternative.

This will involve looking outside the fold, too. It’s clear the decision-makers don’t consider Yuki Tsunoda to be a Red Bull Racing driver. So if Daniel Ricciardo wants his old seat back, he will have to convincingly beat the Japanese. Liam Lawson, after making his debut at Red Bull’s second-string team, is just too raw.

For Norris, the decision was more than over which team he thinks is likely to give him the best car. He will have considered whether a team so focused on Max would be right for him.

Brown, therefore, focused on painting Mclaren as Lando’s best option. He says his approach to any employee is “for them to want to be at Mclaren, so I tend to focus on making sure Mclaren is the best environment and people want to be with us because you can’t control external approaches.

“I’m very confident in the relationship we have with Lando.”

On the contract extension, Brown said: “I’m delighted we’re continuing our relationship with Lando for multiple years to come. It’s been a fantastic journey over the past six years, and he has shown fantastic commitment and desire to push the team forward and get Mclaren back to the front of the grid.”