Lando Norris may be the newest king of Formula 1, but his first motorsport crush was always two-wheeled. Speaking at the Esports World Cup in Riyadh earlier this year, he revealed that horse riding never clicked and that his father even moved on his quad bike over safety fears before Norris found his groove in motocross.

He described dirt bikes, buggies, and desert racing as the coolest things in the world and admitted that his passion for motorbikes arrived before he ever really watched Formula 1. Valentino Rossi was the poster on the wall and the benchmark in his imagination long before McLaren papaya became his calling card.

Steiner Opens the MotoGP Door

That childhood obsession has now been given a real-world outlet. Former Haas Formula 1 boss Guenther Steiner, who fronted a consortium that bought out the Red Bull KTM Tech3 MotoGP operation in September, has publicly invited Norris to ride one of the team’s premier-class machines next year.

With the new ownership structure taking full effect in 2026, Steiner will step up as CEO while Richard Coleman becomes team principal. The pair want star power around their project from the outset.

On The Red Flags Podcast, Steiner joked that the Tech3 KTM colors are close enough to McLaren papaya and said Norris is welcome anytime, although he admitted he is unsure how relaxed McLaren chief Zak Brown would be about his title-winning driver climbing onto a 300-kilometre-per-hour prototype.

Cross-Code Temptation and the Risks

For Norris, the invite is more than a publicity stunt. It offers a chance to reconnect with the discipline that first made him fall in love with racing while adding his name to a short list of elite car racers who have sampled MotoGP machinery in the modern era, even if only in a private test.

Any outing would require careful risk management given the physical demands and danger of a MotoGP bike, as well as the value of a reigning Formula 1 champion to McLaren’s long-term plans.

Yet, if the logistics and insurance hurdles can be cleared, the sight of the 2025 world champion swapping cockpit for saddle would be one of motorsport’s most compelling crossovers in years and a headline launchpad for Steiner’s rebadged Tech3 project.