{"id":335728,"date":"2025-12-08T21:26:11","date_gmt":"2025-12-08T21:26:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/335728\/"},"modified":"2025-12-08T21:26:11","modified_gmt":"2025-12-08T21:26:11","slug":"f1-news-mclarens-lando-norris-to-race-with-1-in-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/335728\/","title":{"rendered":"F1 news: McLaren&#8217;s Lando Norris to race with #1 in 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/XPB_1392464_HiRes.jpg\" alt=\"F1 champion Norris makes call on running #1\"\/><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tMcLaren celebrates winning the F1 world championship with Lando Norris at the Formula 1 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. Image: Price \/ XPB Images<\/p>\n<p>Norris is set to switch from his traditional #4 as soon as this week in post-season testing, with his championship-winning MCL39 to sport the new number.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking with Sky Sport F1, Norris said the decision to run the new number was as much about his team\u2019s success as his own.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWill it be on the car tomorrow? I think it will be. I want to say yes,\u201d said Norris.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s tradition. It\u2019s there for a reason. It\u2019s there because you can go and try grab it and you can work hard to try and get it.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFor one year, all of us as a team that gets to have a role in McLaren, or my car, will get to wear that with pride.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s all my mechanics, my engineers, everyone that\u2019s part of McLaren gets to have that acknowledgement too.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s not for me, it\u2019s for them as well. It\u2019s their pride. They put a lot of work and effort into everything.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo they also get to go \u2018we\u2019re number one\u2019. It\u2019s not as cool saying \u2018we\u2019re number four\u2019 so they\u2019ll be even happier than I am.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Norris takes #1 from Red Bull\u2019s Max Verstappen, who has campaigned the number since 2022 after taking the first of four consecutive world championships.<\/p>\n<p>Since 2014, drivers have been allowed to pick what number they run. Several drivers have become synonymous with their numbers, like Lewis Hamilton who elected to run #44 instead of #1 after his world championship success.<\/p>\n<p>With Norris to take #1 in 2026, it leaves a question mark over Verstappen who has traditionally campaigned #33 but has flirted with the idea of running #69 or #3 instead.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p><a data-no-instant=\"1\" href=\"https:\/\/www.parcelprotect.com.au\/deliveryrun\/?utm_source=Speedcafe&amp;utm_website=EDM&amp;utm_campaign=Speedcafe_2025\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" class=\"a2t-link\" target=\"_blank\" aria-label=\"328_Parcel-speedcafe_takeover_v1_728x90\"><img decoding=\"async\" fetchpriority=\"high\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/328_Parcel-speedcafe_takeover_v1_728x90.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"728\" height=\"90\"\/><\/a>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"McLaren celebrates winning the F1 world championship with Lando Norris at the Formula 1 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":335729,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[64,63,817,813,816,1737,913,6490,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-335728","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-formula-1","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-f1","11":"tag-formula-1","12":"tag-formula1","13":"tag-lando-norris","14":"tag-mclaren","15":"tag-slot3","16":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335728","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=335728"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335728\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/335729"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=335728"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=335728"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=335728"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}