Norris has been a consistent performer ever since making his F1 debut at the start of the 2019 season, but 2023 has been another breakthrough year for him. Four second-place finishes already this season have marked the McLaren man out as a potential future world champion.
So impressive is Norris’ 2023 campaign that the popular Brit has more podiums than Ferrari duo Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz, and sits above Mercedes’ George Russell in the standings, despite spending the first half of the season in midfield machinery.
Click here to join our WhatsApp community to be the first to receive breaking and exclusive F1 news.
Speaking about the 23-year-old’s future, Chandhok told OLBG: “Lando Norris is at the top of the shopping list for Ferrari, Red Bull and Mercedes if they ever wanted to change drivers. They’ve all got good drivers now, so there isn’t a situation where they need to change drivers.
“Lando’s stock value at the moment is very high and McLaren will have to open the chequebook and give him more to keep him or it’ll be a tough battle if he keeps delivering. He’s hot property at the moment.”
While Mercedes’ and Ferrari’s driver line-ups are relatively stable and look to be in place for the next couple of seasons at least, the future of Red Bull’s pairing is much more up in the air with Sergio Perez unlikely to stay with the team beyond the end of the year.
“What he can achieve in his career depends on the car and the team that he finds himself at,” Chandhok continued. “This new generation of Lando Norris, George Russell, Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc have all got the ability to fight and win the world championship if they’re in the right car at the right time.
“Apart from Max Verstappen, Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso, we’ve not seen any of them in a title situation, so we don’t know what they’ll be like with the pressure of a championship fight.
“I’d love to see it. We’d love to see a multi-driver and multi-team championship, but you can’t have that all the time. In another year, we might have a championship fight with all the teams in it.”
