Norris can’t stop smiling
HISTORY IN THE MAKING: MCLAREN UNVEIL BRITAIN’S YOUNGEST F1 STAR
18-year-old set to replace Vandoorne in British F1 team.
Lando Norris, who will debut for McLaren next year as Britain’s newest and youngest ever Formula One driver, is a man in a hurry and the 18-yearold already has the speeding fine to prove it.
“It happens to everyone, better own up to it than not,” he grinned in an interview this week when the thorny subject was put to him.
Speaking a day after news broke that he would be replacing Belgian Stoffel Vandoorne next year in an all-new line-up with Spaniard Carlos Sainz, Norris relived the excitement of having a dream come true.
“I was smiling for the rest of my flight home,” he said after returning to the McLaren factory from the Italian Grand Prix.
“I literally didn’t stop smiling. It’s been a long time coming, to finally make this step into Formula One with McLaren.”
The Formula Two title contender was the frontrunner for the job, as a protege of team principal Zak Brown, who snapped him up after he won the McLaren BRDC young Driver-of-the-Year award in 2016. But it was not an absolute certainty.
“I was told just before the race in Monza. Just as I was leaving I bumped into Zak, which I didn’t mean to do. He said he had something to tell me and I wasn’t expecting it, to be honest.
“After everyone told me about (Sergio) Perez, (Esteban) Ocon who could get the seat, I was a bit more unsure. So it did come as a bit of a surprise, a bit of a shock. But at the same time I was more or less ready to hear that if it did come.”
While following in the footsteps of four-times world champion Lewis Hamilton, the compatriot who started with McLaren in 2007, it is Italian MotoGP great Valentino Rossi that Norris holds up as his boyhood idol.
“I was more into MotoGP before I started watching Formula One. and I loved his colour scheme basically,” he said.
“The yellow, ‘The Doctor’. He was always a bit different and changed helmets and had different things,” he recalled.
“My helmet design I have now is pretty much based on his. He has the sun and the moon and mine is pretty much the sun and I’ve adjusted it towards what I like a bit more but it originated from him.”
The youngster, who obtained his driving licence at 17, has taken part in Friday practice sessions and tests for McLaren and the next step will not faze him.
“McLaren obviously think I’m ready for it,” he said.
McLaren’s reputation with young drivers, Hamilton excepted, has been poor of late but Norris said he was not worried about what had befallen Perez, Denmark’s Kevin Magnussen and now Vandoorne at the team. “I focus on my own job,” he said. “I think McLaren need a fresh start. That’s why I’m in.
“For the best progression of the team and getting the team back to where they need to be, I believe having two fresh drivers is the best thing. If we can, hopefully I’ll be the one.”
That prospect remains some way off, with Norris looking to score points and learn as much as he can once he gets into the cockpit.
Asked what kind of a driver he was, Norris smiled.
“I’m pretty calm. Sometimes I’m a bit under-aggressive and sometimes a bit over. But I think it’s good to have both.”