Christian Horner admits ‘keeping an eye’ on Lando Norris amid Red Bull link

Christian Horner admits Red Bull are “keeping an eye” on Lando Norris with regards to their second seat for 2025.

The constructors’ champions tied down Max Verstappen – who could secure his third-straight F1 drivers’ title in Qatar next week – to a lucrative contract until 2028, but the team’s second seat is sooner up for grabs.

Sergio Perez has a deal until the end of 2024 but has struggled for consistency this season and is now only 33 points clear of Lewis Hamilton in the battle for second place in the world championship.

Perez will be up against the likes of AlphaTauri pair Daniel Ricciardo and Yuki Tsunoda, as well as Red Bull reserve Liam Lawson, for a spot alongside Verstappen and the Dutchman’s close friend Norris has also been linked with a switch.

“Lando’s a great driver – he’s a big talent, big personality and of course he’s one of those drivers that you keep an eye on,” Horner told Sky Sports News.

“But there’s many drivers that you keep an eye on as well. There’s a huge generation of drivers out there at the moment that have got a huge amount of talent.

“Now, being Max’s team-mate is never going to be easy and some drivers may be up for that challenge, some may not be. But of course as well as the drivers we have in-house, we keep an eye on all the driver market.

“As you can imagine, there’s quite a bit of interest from certain sectors about driving a Red Bull car.”

Despite the links, McLaren insisted that conversations are ongoing about extending Norris’ deal beyond 2025.

His team-mate, Oscar Piastri, penned an extension last week until the end of 2026.

“We are optimistic that this pair of drivers will be the pair of drivers at McLaren for a long time,” said McLaren team principal Andrea Stella last week.

“We’re certainly having conversations with Lando. They are good conversations, we are happy with how these conversations are going.”

Norris added: “I’ve always said I want to win with McLaren and I think we’re getting closer and closer to achieving that. And not just win races but win championships, both driver and constructors.

“I’m very much just concentrating on this year, next year and 2025. There are still two-and-a-half years to try and progress and we’ll see then.”