Lando Norris picks future F1 world champion away from Lewis Hamilton & Max Verstappen

McLaren star Lando Norris has said that George Russell could be the next Formula 1 world champion aside from Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen.

The 2022 season is firmly on the horizon and there is a hope that the new rules and regulations are going to provide a real shake-up to the order.

Indeed, the 2021 campaign showed how exciting the sport can be when two teams and drivers battle for the championship and hopefully 2022 can offer up more of that.

Certainly, it would be nice to see more names and teams involved in the fight for glory and Lando Norris in his McLaren will be hoping to be part of the action.

That said, he thinks that there are a number of drivers who could challenge for the world championship in the near future aside from Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton with fellow Briton George Russell one of those.

“You could say George [Russell],” he said when asked by talkSPORT, before naming some others:

“Carlos [Sainz], Charles [Leclerc], you never know, myself or Daniel [Ricciardo].”

Certainly, many feel Ferrari and McLaren can join the party at the front if they get the new regulations right, and that would surely mean all four of their very talented drivers can challenge for the championship.

On that, Norris said:

“I think to be realistic we have a little bit of work to do. We’ll see, I don’t know, maybe ask me in two races and I can give you a much better answer!

“I want to win with McLaren.

“But I believe within the next few years there’s much more of an opportunity and a chance to do so, and a little bit of that is down to being able to be more comparable, being able to have the chance to race against Mercedes a lot more, and Ferrari and Red Bull.

“Because of the last few years and the money and so on, we