From LN4 to LN1: Norris claims car number 1 for 2026

Under the Yas Marina floodlights, with tyre smoke still hanging in the desert air, Lando Norris didn’t just win a world championship – he rewrote his own identity. Days after sealing the 2025 title in Abu Dhabi, the Brit has confirmed he will trade the long‑standing LN4 for the most loaded symbol in Formula 1: car number 1.

Norris became the 35th world champion – and McLaren’s first since 2008 – by finishing third in Abu Dhabi, edging Max Verstappen by just 2 points after 24 races of undercuts, DRS trains and shrinking pit windows.

According to BBC and ESPN reports, it was enough to end Verstappen’s four‑year title streak and make Norris Britain’s 11th drivers’ champion, crowned at the same team where he debuted in 2019. The numbers behind the story are as relentless as a qualifying lap: 19 podiums from 24 grands prix, a season that surged back to life after setbacks in Zandvoort, Las Vegas and Qatar.

But even as the champagne dried on the Abu Dhabi podium, another decision loomed. Since 2014, drivers have carried permanent race numbers, with the reigning champion alone granted the right to run number 1. Lewis Hamilton famously declined that privilege, sticking with 44; Verstappen embraced it, carrying 1 on his Red Bull from 2022 through 2025. Now, with fresh 2026 regulations also allowing drivers to change numbers year to year, Norris has chosen to put a literal target on his papaya car.

The new champion confirmed to Sky Sports News, via Formula 1 and other outlets, that he will switch from 4 to 1 next season, taking over the digit Verstappen has made synonymous with modern dominance. It is, on paper, a cosmetic tweak. On the emotional dashboard of a race team, it is far more: validation, responsibility, and a daily reminder that everyone in papaya has climbed the same mountain.

"It's tradition, it's there for a reason. It's there because you can go and try grab it and you can work hard to try and get it.

— Lando Norris, speaking to Sky Sports News, quoted by Formula1.com

"So, it's not for me, it's for them as well. It's their pride, knowing that they put a lot of work and effort into everything that they can also go 'we're number one'. It's not as cool when you say 'we are number four' so they will be even happier than I am!"

— Lando Norris, speaking to Sky Sports News, quoted by Formula1.com

That idea – that the 1 belongs as much to the mechanics on the midnight set‑up shift as to the driver in the cockpit – fits neatly with the way this title was won. As ESPN recounts, Norris called the season “incredible and pretty surreal”, reflecting on “the last 16 to 17 years” spent chasing the dream after finally emerging on top of a three‑way fight with Verstappen and Oscar Piastri.

From Australia to Abu Dhabi, McLaren’s season was a rolling drama: early dominance from Piastri, Verstappen’s relentless pressure, disqualifications and strategy misfires that dragged the contest all the way to the final stint of the finale. When the lights went out in Yas Marina, Norris only needed a calm, points‑rich drive within his pit window; what he delivered was a champion’s compromise, ceding the win but banking the podium and the crown.

Now comes the sequel. With number 1 on the nose, Norris becomes only the third driver of the permanent‑number era to use it, after Sebastian Vettel in 2014 and Verstappen since 2022. The familiar 4 will be kept in reserve, locked to Norris for the rest of his career, but parked in the garage while LN1 defends the throne.

Next year’s 2026 rule reset will change the sound of the cars, the shape of the wings and the strategies that define every pit window. But as pre‑season testing looms and McLaren prepares to roll a papaya car emblazoned with a bold white 1 into the pit lane, one truth is already written: the hunter of 2025 has become the hunted. The story of whether Lando Norris can keep that number on his car has just begun – and the rest of the grid is already forming a DRS train in his mirrors.