Lando Norris, the reigning Formula 1 world champion, has co-founded a new junior single-seater racing team called LN4 Fusion, which plans to compete in Italian F4, the FIA Formula Regional European Championship (FRECA) and Formula 3 from 2027, according to The Race.

The 26-year-old McLaren driver made the announcement at an event near Monza, shortly before the Italian Grand Prix and just weeks after signing a contract extension that keeps him at McLaren until the end of 2030.

A Prema pedigree, minus Prema

LN4 Fusion has appointed Rene Rosin, who won more than 40 junior championships during his time at Prema Racing, as team principal. Rosin left Prema earlier this year in what was widely described as a surprise departure. He is joined by another long-serving Prema figure, Guillaume Capietto, who becomes Racing Director.

The team is backed by an investment group led by Dan Richards, who becomes LN4 Fusion’s chief executive. ‘It has taken an enormous collective effort to bring the different elements together, but the objective from the beginning has been to build this properly and for the long term,’ Richards said.

LN4 Fusion has acquired selected assets of AIX Racing, which held an F3 entry valid through the end of the 2027 season, and has submitted an application to join Formula 2. The team has also begun a British Formula 4 testing programme, run in Cambridgeshire by Dan Hazlewood in partnership with karting outfit Fusion Motorsport, with a view to securing a full entry into that championship. Its European headquarters is being built in Veneto, northern Italy, and its cars will carry a livery built around Norris’s fluorescent yellow signature colour.

A separate fund for drivers without backing

Alongside the team, Norris has launched the LN4 Legacy Programme, a fully funded, independent initiative intended to help talented young drivers who lack financial support move up the motorsport ladder toward Formula 1. Norris has spoken about how central financial backing was to his own career.

I was very lucky growing up that my dad could support me all the way through to Formula 2.

‘I’ve been really lucky to have some amazing people around me throughout my career, and I know that getting to Formula 1 takes so much more than just talent,’ Norris said, according to the FIA Formula 2 official website. ‘LN4 Fusion is about building a race team that can compete with the best in junior motorsport, with great people and a great environment for drivers to develop.’

F1’s chief executive and president, Stefano Domenicali, publicly welcomed Norris’s involvement in the project.

Seeing Lando Norris involved in this new project is an incredible statement on how much the pyramid of Formula 3 and Formula 2 is crucial to the future of Formula 1.

LN4 Fusion’s entry adds a new, well-resourced competitor to a junior single-seater landscape long dominated by Prema, with Rosin and Capietto’s departures likely to reshape that balance heading into 2027.

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