Norris picks five drivers to make up ultimate F1 talent

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Widely regarded as one of the rising stars of Formula 1, McLaren's Lando Norris has named five drivers from the history of the sport that between them would make up what he regards as the ultimate F1 driver.

Norris considered candidates from his own generation such as Max Verstappen, George Russell, Pierre Gasly and Charles Leclerc, as well as former champions still competing today such as Lewis Hamilton, Fernando Alonso and Sebastian Vettel.

Read also: Button says Verstappen most gifted in F1, but perhaps not the best

Several of those drivers made Norris' final list when he was recently asked by a fan during a recent Reddit online AMA event to name the five current drivers he would combine to make the ultimate F1 competitor.

“You’d have Lewis in there, you’d have Max, I love Fernando, a bit of Carlos," he said, including his former McLaren team mate who is now at Ferrari with whom he enjoyed a memorable 'bromance' during their time together at Woking.

To make things slightly easier, Norris didn't delve back into the history of the sport to consider the likes of Juan Manuel Fangio, Ayrton Senna, Alain Prost or Michael Schumacher. “I’ll go with present drivers not past," he said.

But even so, there are also some notable omissions to Norris' selection, with one of them particularly surprising given the current state of the 2022 drivers championship.

“I missed Charles out," he admitted. "I feel bad, but from those others, I think you put them together you’d have pretty much an unbeatable driver.”

Instead, his nomination of AlphaTauri's Yuki Tsunoda as the fifth member of the shortlist might raise a few eyebrows. But in a video on the Quadrant YouTube channel, explains exactly why he picked the people he did.

"A bit of Yuki, " he said. “Yuki loves a bit of radio scream, so just for pure entertainment I’d put Yuki in there!"

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.