F1 champion Lando Norris offered KTM MotoGP ride by Guenther Steiner
Tech3’s new owner has extended an offer to Lando Norris to try a MotoGP bike
Tech3 team owner Guenther Steiner has invited reigning Formula 1 world champion Lando Norris to test a KTM MotoGP bike next year.
McLaren driver Lando Norris secured his first F1 world title last week at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, after beating Red Bull’s Max Verstappen by just two points at the end of a 24-round campaign.
He is the first Briton since Lewis Hamilton in 2020 to be crowned world champion and the first for McLaren since 2007.
Norris is an avid MotoGP fan, making several visits to the paddock over the years, including to the 2025 San Marino Grand Prix at Misano as a guest of Valentino Rossi’s VR46 team.
Speaking on an episode of The Red Flags podcast, former Haas team boss and current Tech3 owner Guenther Steiner has offered Norris a chance to ride a KTM MotoGP bike next year.
“He is welcome to ride our bike next year,” Steiner said.
“It has the same colour [as the McLaren], papaya… Ok, it’s orange, but they are very similar.
“He can come and ride it; we will find a way to arrange it.
“It would be something nice for him, although I don’t know if Zak Brown would be happy to see him ride a MotoGP bike.”
Steiner took over ownership of Tech3 earlier this year, when he led a consortium in a €20 million purchase of the KTM satellite squad from Herve Poncharal.
While far from being a concrete plan, talk of an F1/MotoGP crossover between Tech3 and Norris will be welcomed by the owner of both series, Liberty Media.
However, Norris’ association with Monster Energy could pose a stumbling block in Tech3’s ambitions, given its - and KTM’s - association with Red Bull.
A number of MotoGP riders have dabbled with F1 machinery over the years, with the likes of Valentino Rossi, Jorge Lorenzo and Marc Marquez doing so.
Rossi’s flirtations with Ferrari machinery in the mid-2000s was part of serious considerations by the MotoGP legend in making a switch to F1.
F1 drivers sampling MotoGP machinery is a rarer occurrence.
The most recent example was the ride swap between Rossi and Lewis Hamilton in 2019 at Valencia.
That day, seven-time F1 champion Hamilton rode a Yamaha M1 for the first time, while Rossi got behind the wheel of one of his Mercedes cars.
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