Lando Norris Becomes Sergio Perez's Substitute Candidate At Red Bull Racing, But...

JAKARTA - Red Bull Racing is reportedly looking for a replacement for Sergio Perez. The Mexican racer is likely to leave the team at the end of his contract in 2024.

Red Bull is routinely associated with Lando Norris as a replacement option. In fact, reportedly, the British racer has communicated with the Formula 1 2023 constructors champion.

Talks about this possibility are getting more intensive thanks to the extraordinary performance shown by Norris. The McLaren racer managed to stand on the podium four times this season.

That makes it better than Charles Leclerc, Carlos Sainz, and George Russell.

However, Christian Horner, Red Bull's team boss, has signaled that his team will not bring Lando Norris to the team for 2025 and beyond. He stressed that his Red Bull prefers Sergio Perez's replacement to come from within their own program.

Asked about Norris' potential signing for Red Bull, Horner told Sky Sports, "Lando is a great rider. He has great talent, a strong personality, and of course, he is one of the riders you always pay attention to."

"But there are many other riders that you should also pay attention to. There are current generations of riders who have great talent. Of course, being Max (Verstappen) team-mates will never be easy, and some drivers may be ready to face those challenges, some may not."

"But, of course, apart from the racers who already exist in the team, we also continue to monitor the entire riders' market. As you can imagine, there is quite a lot of interest from certain sectors to drive Red Bull cars," he continued.

Apart from Norris, Daniel Ricciardo is also reported to be back in the cockpit seat of the Red Bull land jet. Yuki Tsunoda will also be an option for Horner and Helmut Marko to consider.

The Japanese racer has made striking progress after three seasons in F1.

The fourth year with AlphaTauri could lead him to a mature academy product sought by Red Bull.

"There's a lot of great talent out there, and of course what we want are the two best riders we can equip. So ideally, they will come from our talent program, and if we don't believe there is such ability, we'll see out there to see who's available," Horner said.