Pato O'Ward will make his fourth Formula One free practice session this weekend in front of his adoring home crowd at the Mexican Grand Prix. Alongside him in the McLaren garage will be Lando Norris, but the Brit's stance on going the opposite way and trying out IndyCar has changed over the years.
Fernando Alonso is the only driver on the current grid to have competed in both F1 and IndyCar, having made three attempts at the Indianapolis 500 with McLaren in 2017, 2019, and 2020. However, many stars have gone the other way, joining North America's premier open-wheel series after leaving the grid.
Many drivers, including reigning world champion Max Verstappen and Norris' team-mate, Oscar Piastri, have made it clear that they have no intention of attempting the Indy 500, often due to the dangers associated with the race at the iconic Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
Norris, however, showed plenty of interest early in his F1 career. "I watch it for sure," he said in 2021. "Normally, it's the Monaco weekend. I watch it; I watch as many of the IndyCar races as I can.
"At the moment, it's not something I want to go and do right now; I'd rather just focus on [F1], but it's something to think about in the future. I would love to do it at some point, but not at the moment."
The Bristol-born driver expressed his belief that the Indy 500 is a tougher race to win than the Monaco Grand Prix, and comes with more prestige than F1's crown jewel. "Indy, you have to do something more incredible to win with your strategy, your fuel, and things like that. Monaco is not so much, but what makes it special is the history of Monaco.
"I'm not as much of a fan of the history of the sport, but you just want to win because it's Monaco. I think Indy's more like a prestigious event that people look forward to because it's so unique and so different to anything else you normally see. So it is something I'd like to do."
Norris' interest was confirmed by Zak Brown in 2022. "Lando's mentioned he'd like to do the Indy 500 one day," the McLaren Racing CEO confirmed. "And of course, one of my first days on the job was bringing over Fernando Alonso to do the Indy 500, which was such an awesome experience for everybody.
"So yeah, you know, the calendars are pretty crazy these days, but I think racing drivers like to drive racing cars and, yeah, I could see that happening."
More recently, though, Norris' stance has changed. After congratulating 2025 pole-winner Robert Shwartzman earlier this year, he added: "But it is something I'll never do. I can say it right now, I'm not doing it. [I] just have no interest in doing it. Not my thing, it's not what I enjoy, even though I've done it on the sim and it was quite fun."