The steps Norris took to reach a new level in F1 2021

Lando Norris came of age as a grand prix driver in 2021. McLaren’s young ace is no longer an apprentice or a quietly capable number two – he’s proved himself a potential winner in the top flight and, as STUART CODLING finds out, he’s ready to stake his claim to greatness…

Though it’s just a handful of months since GP Racing last sat down to talk to Lando Norris, so much has changed in the interim. Who could have predicted, at the beginning of the season, that Norris’s highly rated new team-mate Daniel Ricciardo, a multiple grand prix winner no less, would take so long to master McLaren’s capricious MCL35M – and that it would be Norris, the youngster with the well-documented confidence issues,  who would lay on the swagger?

With a new technical format beckoning, 2021 was always going to be about making do as teams pivoted development resources early to gain  an advantage in the era to come. For McLaren’s drivers that meant making the best of a difficult car with a particular set of characteristics that made it a potential winner at some tracks and virtually undriveable at others.