Lando Norris says he would like to compete in the Rolex 24 at Daytona again at some point, but believes it or other racing opportunities will have to come after his Formula 1 career.
The McLaren driver made his debut at the iconic endurance event in 2018, partnering Fernando Alonso and Phil Hanson in an LMP2 car for Zak Brown’s United Autosports team. After impressive pace in the wet early in the race, the car was hit by reliability issues and ended up 90 laps down at the flag but the experience seems to have left Norris open to a future appearance.
“I would love to drive more,” Norris said. “I would love to get more opportunities. Formula 1 is my life at the minute — and DJing! — but I understand that. But doing the Daytona 24 hours and things like that I would love to do, and I’m sure in maybe 10 or 20 years I will have that opportunity, or more opportunities to do it.
While he enjoyed the different challenge of racing in the Rolex 24 in 2018, Norris feels F1’s expanded schedule since then has made such crossovers less practical. Jake Galstad/Motorsport Images
“Now with 24 (F1) races, whenever you have downtime you just want to go away and forget about Formula 1 for a couple of days and then you come back to it, so it’s not as easy as maybe it once was, or you don’t have as much time as maybe you once had.
“But I would love to — I’m just scared to drive other peoples’ cars, that’s the only thing, because I feel like I will crash a lot of them! But Zak always wants me to go and take some of his cars out.
“We still haven’t decided — (Daniel Ricciardo) got to drive the No. 3 Dale Earnhardt car, I don’t really have anyone I’ve looked up to like Daniel and Earnhardt. Maybe a motorbike, but I probably wouldn’t be able to come back to four wheels if I went motorbiking because I’d crash again!”
Ricciardo says he’s also not considered other events while racing in F1, but with a year out expected in 2023, he also thinks Daytona would be fun to do at some stage.
“With the schedule we have it’s just hard to find the time,” Ricciardo said. “And also the truth is, on a weekend off I don’t want to be at a racetrack. I think (Fernando) Alonso does! But most others don’t. So that’s it.
“I drove a sprint car like 15 years ago and that was fun because it was on dirt and completely different. We grew up watching sprint cars, so that was really cool — it scared me but that was really fun.
“It’s not that you say no, it’s just the time and place. I’m too old to stay up for 24 hours… I don’t party like I used to! But no, (Daytona) would be cool.”
