30 August 2026 09:00 (UTC)
Youngest, fastest, most consistent. Lando Norris has already rewritten whole sections of the McLaren record book. How many more milestones can he reach?
From the moment he joined the team, Lando has been busy scratching out existing landmarks and penning his name next to a slew of team and overall F1 records.
After joining the team in 2017 and spending 2018 as the team’s Test and Reserve Driver making seven Friday Free Practice appearances, Lando was handed a race drive for the following season. And on 17 March 2019, at the tender age of 19 years, four months and four days, he became McLaren’s youngest race starter, beating Kevin Magnussen by almost two full years. His debut in the Australian Grand Prix also made him the sixth youngest starter in F1 history.
Lando has continued to pile up the milestones ever since. His first podium came in his 22nd Grand Prix start, with third place at the 2020 Austrian Grand Prix.
It took a little longer for the Briton to claim his first win, but his superb drive at the 2024 Miami Grand Prix ensured he would not take sole ownership of an unwanted record: the most podiums before a maiden victory. Lando instead shares the benchmark with Patrick Depailler, Jean Alesi, Eddie Irvine and a certain Mika Häkkinen, who went on to take 19 more wins and two titles with McLaren.
And Lando is busy chasing down the Flying Finn’s achievements. After winning in Miami, Lando chalked up his best season to that point, adding three more Grand Prix victories, 13 podiums, eight Poles and 374 points as the team won its first Constructors’ Championship in 26 years.
More was to come in 2025, and with seven wins, 18 podiums, seven Poles and 423 points, Lando achieved his boyhood dream of becoming Formula 1 World Champion – the 35th in the sport’s history and the eighth McLaren driver to take the top prize.
Along the way, Lando also etched his name deeper into team history when, at the Qatar Grand Prix, he became McLaren’s most prolific starter, passing the record 150 starts David Coulthard reached at the 2004 Brazilian Grand Prix.
And at last year’s Italian Grand Prix, Lando became McLaren’s fastest-ever driver when his Q3 lap of 1:18.869 set an average speed of 264.423km/h. Lando still has F1’s second-fastest ever lap, behind Max Verstappen, who moments afterwards went 0.258km/h faster to steal Pole and the outright record.
In just seven and a half seasons, it’s quite the list of achievements. But the opportunities don’t end there. With a freshly extended contract in his pocket and his long-term future once again committed to the team, it’s entirely possible that Lando could add whole new sections to his roster of records.
Here are a handful of targets the Briton can set for himself…
This one won’t be easy, but given the multi-year nature of his new agreement, it’s possible that Lando could go on to become the driver with most Grand Prix wins for McLaren.
With 13 wins to his credit so far, he currently lies fifth in the table, seven behind Mika and one more behind Lewis Hamilton, who holds P3 with 21 wins. Getting on the biggest winner’s podium looks achievable, but after that the gap to the top two, Alain Prost (30) and Ayrton Senna (25) looks pretty wide. However, Lando’s 13 wins have come in just two-and-a-half seasons, and with multiple seasons of 24 races or more ahead of him, the target is ambitious but real.
After that first podium in Spielberg, Lando has racked up 48 podium finishes. That leaves him one behind Lewis Hamilton, the team’s fifth-most frequent top-three finisher, and three short of joint-third-placed Mika and David Coulthard, who have 51 each. Alain Prost’s record of 63 may still look some way off for now, but Lando recorded 18 podiums in 2025 alone and already has four this season. Sixteen more over the coming years – definitely doable.
On this one, Lando is up against some of the best qualifiers of all time. At the top of the team’s list is Ayrton with a whopping 46 Poles in just six seasons between 1988 and 1993. Lewis (F1’s Pole record holder with 104 overall) and Mika share second place with 26 each, followed by Lando with 18. The reigning World Champion is certainly no slouch over a single lap, however – and all but one of his Poles have come from his 50 most recent Qualifying sessions (up to Zandvoort 2026). That’s an almost one in three chance of taking top spot, so overhauling Mika and Lewis is very possible.
It feels like a matter of time before he reaches this milestone. Despite the fact that it’s no longer a point-paying achievement, Lando hasn’t lost his love of ultimate pace in races. The defending Champion has racked up a whopping 20 Fastest Laps to date, just four behind Alain and five off Mika’s team benchmark. This is one record that’s destined to tumble.
Another certain milestone. By the end of this season, Lando could well have 174 Grand Prix starts to his name. It makes it highly likely that early in the 2028 season, Lando will enter his third century of F1 races, all with McLaren.
The team is currently on 179 Poles, so the 200th could arrive during Lando’s time with McLaren. He has a habit of making team landmarks his own. At the 2025 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, he scored our 175th Fastest Lap. Later that year, in Hungary, he sealed McLaren’s 200th Grand Prix win, and in São Paulo he scored our 175th Pole. If the team reaches 200 while he is still racing in papaya, he will have every chance of claiming it.
The toughest target of all. If he achieves it, Lando will join Alberto Ascari, Graham Hill, Jim Clark, Emerson Fittipaldi, Mika and Fernando Alonso as a two-time World Champion, becoming just the 18th driver in Formula 1 history to win two or more titles. It is a massive task, but Lando has spent the past seven years proving that even the biggest milestones are there to be chased.
