Hamilton and Leclerc snubbed as Red Bull’s Lando Norris admiration backed up
Lando Norris enjoyed the most impressive 2023 season of any driver on the F1 grid outside of Max Verstappen, according to Express Sport readers. The McLaren star was a regular podium ceremony attendee after the summer break and has attracted interest from reigning champions Red Bull.
While Verstappen dominated F1 in 2023, winning 19 of the 22 Grands Prix, often in comfortable fashion, some other drivers caught the eye. Most notable among them was Norris, who finished on the podium seven times with six of those top-three finishes being second-placed ones.
This consistency allowed McLaren to beat Aston Martin to fourth place in the Constructors’ Championship standings, despite arriving at the season opener in Bahrain with the slowest car in the field. Norris himself recorded a P6 finish in the Drivers’ Championship, finishing just one point behind both Leclerc and Alonso.
Norris’ impressive displays haven’t gone unnoticed. When asked to compare his 2023 campaign with that of Hamilton, Alonso and Leclerc, as well as Sergio Perez and Carlos Sainz, the 24-year-old came out on top.
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In a survey of 7,471 Express Sport readers, 46 per cent believed that Norris had enjoyed the strongest season of the drivers selected with the next most popular answer being Alonso, who attracted 24 per cent of the voter share following an immense first half of the year.
The McLaren star’s compatriot Hamilton was forced to settle for joint-third place in the poll with nine per cent of Express Sport readers surveyed believing that his season was the strongest. This figure was the same for Perez, who finished second in the Drivers’ Championship standings despite a troublesome run of form after the summer break.
Despite claiming five pole positions, only eight per cent of readers felt that Leclerc’s season was the strongest of the options presented, while Sainz only boasted four per cent of the vote, even though he was the only non-Red Bull driver to win a Grand Prix.
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These results have backed up the interest in Norris from Red Bull and Ferrari. The former view the Bristol-born driver as an ideal long-term successor to Perez, although with his contract up one year later than the Mexican’s, this could prove a stumbling block in any future negotiations.
Ferrari’s interest has never been publicly confirmed by the Italian constructor, although a fresh report from Gazzetta dello Sport stated that Fred Vasseur’s team are keeping an eye on Norris as a potential replacement for Sainz, should the Spaniard leave the team in 2025.
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