Guenther Steiner being Guenther, he’s tossed a hand grenade into the off-season: an open invite for newly crowned World Champion Lando Norris to hop off his McLaren and onto a KTM MotoGP bike.
Steiner, now helming the Red Bull KTM Tech3 squad, says Norris can have a spin on their orange missile whenever he fancies — with one small, papaya-coloured caveat.
“He’s welcome to ride our bike next year,” Steiner said on The Red Flags podcast, leaning into the color banter. “It’s not papaya, it’s orange… but close enough. We’ll find a way to arrange it. I just don’t know if Zak Brown would be happy to see him on a MotoGP bike.”
You can imagine the face Zak just pulled.
Norris ends 2025 as the sport’s headline act, overturning a 34-point deficit after the Dutch Grand Prix and sealing the title by two points with third place in Abu Dhabi. It’s the sort of arc that changes a driver’s life — and changes how risk is judged around him. Brown and Andrea Stella have already locked him in with an “extended multi-year” deal announced back in early 2024. “This reflects the commitment and confidence we have together,” Stella said at the time. Translation: McLaren have their franchise driver and aren’t keen on sharing him with gravity.
That said, the itch is real. Norris has never hidden his two-wheeled obsession. Before karting, it was motocross weekends and muddy kit. “I would love to do motorbike stuff. That’s actually where I started,” he said in August. “I love dirt motorsport — motorbikes, motocross, quad bikes — I loved all of that before I ever watched Formula 1. Motorbikes was where a lot of my love started, my hero was Valentino Rossi.”
The romance of the crossover is obvious. F1 champion tries a MotoGP weapon, the world clicks. KTM gets a marketing thunderclap, Tech3 gets a sold-out paddock, and McLaren’s social team gets palpitations. Dani Pedrosa’s size, Marc Márquez’s elbows, Brad Binder’s bravery — it’s a different universe of physics and commitment. Even at “car park pace,” a MotoGP bike demands deference. It’s why drivers’ contracts usually read like hostage notes for extreme hobbies.
Still, you can see how this happens. A controlled environment, closed track, no time chasing, full leather suit, the whole insurance-approved circus. The papaya/orange gag becomes a photo op and everyone goes home grinning. Done properly, it’s safer than a qualifying lap around Monaco in traffic. Done badly, it’s the headline nobody wants.
From Norris’ side, there’s little left to prove this winter. He’s champion, he’s committed long-term, and he’s at the heart of McLaren’s resurgence. The bigger picture for 2026 is already looming, but right now he can afford himself a small bucket-list moment — if McLaren sign off and the lawyers don’t faint. And if you’re Steiner, who’s never been shy about making noise, why not shoot the shot? It’s very Guenther to dangle a carrot and see who blinks first.
Strip away the theatre and there’s also a human bit here: racers are racers. The kid who idolised Rossi and tore up motocross trails didn’t vanish when he put on a crash helmet with a radio in it. Winning a title doesn’t switch that off. It just changes the stakes.
So will it happen? If it does, expect tight choreography and lots of orange — just not papaya. And expect the world to watch, because there’s something irresistibly pure about a champion going back to the thing that made him fall in love with speed in the first place.
Over to you, Zak.
