LANDO NORRIS SNUBS VERSTAPPEN AND HAMILTON TO NAME "FLYING SCOT" DREAM TEAMMATE
Discover why world champion Lando Norris calls Zak Brown his "dream boss" and picks "The Flying Scot" as his ideal partner.
When Lando Norris was asked about his dream F1 teammate, he didn’t pick Lewis Hamilton or Max Verstappen. He skipped right past the obvious choices.
Norris finally clinched the Drivers’ Championship in 2025—the first one of his career. It was a tight race. He edged out Verstappen by just two points, 423 to 421, shutting down Verstappen’s run for a fifth straight title.
He’s been stuck with McLaren since his debut at the 2019 Australian Grand Prix. It took a few seasons for Norris to really get in the mix with guys like Hamilton and Verstappen. Remember Russia in 2021? He almost snagged his first win but lost out to Hamilton in the end. Last season, in 2024, he finished second to Verstappen in the championship.
McLaren’s been on a roll, too. They grabbed the Constructors’ Championship two years in a row since Andrea Stella stepped in as team principal in 2022. Norris always has good things to say about both Stella and CEO Zak Brown. Back in 2024, he even called them his “dream bosses”.
“I’m very happy with Zak,” Norris told the F1 website. “He’s the team boss. Obviously, the team principal is still Mr Stella. But as a boss, Zak is good, and he’s a golfer, too. When your boss asks if you want to play golf, it’s like, ‘Ahh.’”
But when it comes to picking a dream teammate, Norris didn’t go with any of his current rivals. He picked Jackie Stewart. “I love Jackie, so I’d pick Jackie Stewart. And I want to drive alongside Jackie, so I’ll pick myself!” he said.
So, who’s Jackie Stewart? He raced from 1965 to 1973 and won three world titles—’69, ’71, and ’73. They called him “The Flying Scot”. In 1973, Sports Illustrated named him “Sportsman of the Year”. No other racing driver has won that. Stewart picked up 17 pole positions, 27 wins, and stood on the podium 43 times. Now, at 86, he’s the oldest living Grand Prix winner and the last surviving F1 world champ from the 1960s.
FRED VASSEUR SLAMS "ENOUGH WITH THIS STORY" OVER LEWIS HAMILTON’S ENGINEER DRAMA
Lewis Hamilton calls engineer change "detrimental." Get the latest on Carlo Santi, Cedric Michel-Grosjean, and Vasseur's defense.
Lewis Hamilton heads into his second season with Ferrari, but he still doesn’t have a new race engineer lined up. Team boss Fred Vasseur doesn’t seem too worried, though. He brushed off the drama around Hamilton’s situation, saying it’s not really a big deal.
Last year, Hamilton worked alongside Ricardo Adami during his debut season with Ferrari, but they’ve already parted ways ahead of the 2026 season. Even though the new season’s just a couple of weeks away, Ferrari hasn’t named a permanent replacement.
People questioned how well Hamilton and Adami actually communicated last season, especially when Hamilton’s frustration came through on team radio. Now, with Hamilton needing to build a new working relationship, Vasseur insists it’s not creating any bad vibes.
“That’s not exactly what’s happening,” Vasseur told reporters, including those from RacingNews365. “The teamwork between Lewis and everyone on the pit wall is really strong. He’s confident, he’s open, and honestly, I feel good about where things stand. The whole goal is just to keep getting better, day by day. If there’s something to improve, I’ll push for it, but Lewis is in a great mindset.”
During pre-season testing, Hamilton teamed up with Carlo Santi, who used to engineer for Kimi Raikkonen. Meanwhile, rumours are swirling that Ferrari wants to hire Cedric Michel-Grosjean, who just left McLaren, to take over as Hamilton’s race engineer. But Vasseur is clearly tired of the speculation.
When someone brought it up yet again, he cut them off. “Please, enough with this story,” he said. “Look around the paddock. Out of 22 cars, you’ll see six or seven new engineers every year; the same goes for team principals. Honestly, I’m probably the oldest one here, along with Toto Wolff. Teams swap out three or four team principals a year, and it’s not the end of the world.
“There are about 1,500 people in the team now. It’s never just about one race engineer. The person on the pit wall leads a whole group working on the car, so it’s not about individuals. In Formula 1, it’s always about the team. It never comes down to just one person.”
CHARLES LECLERC WARNS F1 OVERTAKING IS "EXTREMELY DIFFICULT" UNDER NEW 2026 REGULATIONS
Charles Leclerc and Esteban Ocon flagged "difficult" passing in 2026 testing. Discover why the 50/50 power split is a strategic nightmare.
Charles Leclerc isn’t sugarcoating it: overtaking looks like a real challenge under the new regulations, and the cost of trying is way higher than before.
Max Verstappen kicked off the complaints about the rules, since now so much depends on how well drivers handle their battery levels. The big change is the 50/50 power split between the internal combustion engine and the battery. That’s forced drivers to rethink everything; they’re saving battery instead of just going flat out for speed.
We’ve just come out of an era where ground effect cars made overtaking tough because of all the dirty air, and honestly, it doesn’t sound like things are getting any easier. No one’s raced for points yet, but after testing in Bahrain, the mood in the paddock isn’t exactly upbeat.
Esteban Ocon was quick to sound the alarm. After following a few cars in testing, he noticed he lost a lot of front grip, maybe even more than last year. He tried the overtake mode but didn’t want to jump to conclusions too soon. Still, his gut feeling? Passing looks tough.
Leclerc agrees. He says he’s on the same page as the other drivers. Right now, overtaking is extremely hard. Maybe with time, as everyone learns how to manage these situations, it’ll get better. But at the moment, every overtake comes at a much steeper battery cost than before. That means even if you pull off a move, getting away from the car behind isn’t as simple as it was last year. It’s just tricky.
When asked about the new rules overall, Leclerc isn’t quite as downbeat as Verstappen, but he admits something’s missing. He’s always loved the aggressive, attacking style of the older F1 cars, and he feels like there’s less of that now. The changes are huge; everything feels completely different from what he’s known in his career. But he does see progress. The cars are getting better, and everyone’s still learning, trying to figure out all the new systems and how to squeeze out the best performance. There’s a lot of work ahead, but things are moving in the right direction.