Lando Norris has signed a new contract worth $40 million per year with McLaren, extending his stay with the Woking team through 2030.
The Brit first joined McLaren in 2019 after coming through their driver development programme, and has never raced for any other Formula 1 team.
His new deal takes him through his age-31 season, meaning there remains time for a late-career move should circumstances change for either driver or team.
The concept of the one-team driver is celebrated in other sports, with names like Ryan Giggs, Paolo Maldini, Kobe Bryant, Derek Jeter, and Dan Marino among its most revered figures.
In Formula 1, however, the achievement has received surprisingly little recognition, partly because so few drivers have ever managed it at a meaningful level.
Jim Clark stands alone at the top of any such list, having spent his entire career with Lotus and claimed 25 grand prix victories and 33 pole positions from just 72 starts.
Clark won nearly 35 percent of all F1 races he entered, a figure bettered only by Juan Manuel Fangio and Alberto Ascari, and remains the only driver in history to win his final race.
That final victory came at the 1968 South African Grand Prix, with Clark tragically losing his life months later in a crash during a Deutschland Trophae race at Hockenheim.
Norris currently sits second on the all-time list, boasting 163 starts, 13 wins, 18 pole positions, and a world championship, all achieved in McLaren’s iconic papaya colours.
He is the only one-team driver aside from Clark to have won a world championship, which alone makes his place in this conversation entirely justified.
Oscar Piastri ranks third despite having just three and a half seasons of F1 experience, having accumulated nine wins, six pole positions, and 80 race starts entirely with McLaren.
The fact that Norris and Piastri sit first and second for race starts among one-team drivers in F1 history highlights just how rare the achievement truly is in the sport.
Behind the McLaren duo, the joint fourth-place group tells its own story, consisting of Sebastien Buemi, Jean-Eric Vergne, and Nicholas Latifi as the only other drivers to start 50 or more races for a single team.
Latifi made 61 starts for Williams, Vergne scored 51 points in 58 races with his best finishes being sixth place in Singapore and Canada, while Buemi is perhaps best remembered for having both front wheels detach simultaneously at 190mph in China in 2010.
Post-F1, Vergne went on to win the Formula E championship twice, while Buemi became one of the sport’s great endurance racers, winning Le Mans four times, the World Endurance Championship four times, and a Formula E title, all while remaining loyal to Toyota for 14 years.