McLaren reveals both Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri interested in Le Mans

McLaren has revealed that its Formula 1 drivers Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri have expressed interest in racing for the team at the Le Mans 24 Hours in the future.

McLaren will return to the top echelon of sportscar racing in 2027 as part of a new Hypercar programme in the World Endurance Championship with a Dallara-based LMDh contender run in partnership with United Autosports.

No drivers have been selected for the programme, but naturally there is intrigue about whether McLaren could call upon its F1 duo to race in the centrepiece round of the WEC.

While McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown made it clear that it would be impossible for Norris or Piastri to do a full WEC season, both drivers have shown a desire to race in the top class of Le Mans once the team’s new Hypercar programme is underway.

“I don't think they could be in the Hypercar programme," Brown told reporters including Crash.net. “Will they do Le Mans? I've spoken with both of them about Le Mans. They would like to be at Le Mans in one of [our cars].”

This weekend’s 93rd running of Le Mans clashes with F1’s Canadian GP and the 2026 race also falls on the same weekend as the rebranded Barcelona GP, preventing any crossover outings between the two series.

Brown admitted that it’s becoming increasingly harder to avoid calendar conflicts between major championships.

“You know these schedules are hard with the expanded schedules of all the racing series and then the knock-on effects,” he explained.

“If you move that date, that date might work, but then it has a knock-on effect to another show. I wouldn't want to be the person responsible for the calendars.

“I think Formula One will do everything they can to not conflict with Le Mans. Obviously, it now conflicts with Indy [500] next year, but I think that'll only be one of every five years from my understanding, so I think they'll try and avoid a conflict.”

McLaren not spreading itself too thin

When the Hypercar project comes on stream, McLaren Racing will be running three major racing programmes in parallel - Formula 1, IndyCar and WEC.

It has also been participating in Formula E since the 2022-23 season, but will bring down the curtain to its involvement in the all-electric series after July’s London finale.

However, Brown is not worried about McLaren spreading itself too thin, stating that it will be able to ramp up its operations to incorporate another high-profile project.

He said: “Few things. One, obviously we're leaving Formula E because we don't want to be in more than three racing series at any one time, so we are creating capacity.

“The other is the way you go about racing. The IndyCar team doesn't touch the Formula 1 team and vice versa. Same thing with the WEC.

“Everyone's very dedicated and you know a racing team sitting in Indianapolis doesn't fall on any resources.

“So where it puts more pressure in the system, there's more around my time, my commercial team, my finance team, my HR team, but then you just scale up accordingly.

“I'm not concerned about that at all, but that also kind of comes back to timing. You don't want to bite off more than you can chew.  So we feel comfortable that it isn't a commitment that is a stretch for us.”

Why McLaren chose now to join the WEC

The Hypercar class was introduced in WEC four years ago, while most of the manufacturers currently competing today joined the category in 2023, coinciding with the arrival of LMDh regulations.

McLaren said there were several reasons for it concluding that now was the right time to join the burgeoning Hypercar category.

“So our automotive business has now been acquired by CYVN Holdings LLC out of Abu Dhabi and we've had a strong interest in wanting to go racing together with automotive,” he said. “They're now in a great position [and] forward-looking. 

“The strength of our Formula One and IndyCar team definitely has an element of that, and then also the success of this new platform, so you kind of put that all together, the timing is good.”

McLaren added that an expansion into IMSA SportsCar Championship's GTP class is under discussion, but such a programme would not come on stream until 2028.