McLaren has announced 17-year-old Lando Norris has joined the team’s young driver programme.
The British driver enjoyed a very successful campaign in 2016 winning the McLaren Autosport BRDC Award as well as the Formula Renault 2.0 Eurocup and NEC titles.
For this year, Norris has made the move to the highly competitive FIA European Formula 3 championship which has seen the likes of Max Verstappen and Lance Stroll succeed and make the move to Formula 1 shortly after.
As part of McLaren’s junior programme, drivers will benefit from the from the McLaren Applied Technologies Human Performance Programme.
“This exciting opportunity with McLaren comes at precisely the right time in my career and there is no other Grand Prix team I’d rather be associated with,” Norris said.
“Being part of the McLaren-Honda Young Driver Development programme is something I wanted to achieve. It’s hopefully taking me another step closer to reaching my goal of competing in Formula One.
“I’m honoured to become part of such a prestigious Formula One team and to be brought in alongside some very good drivers and experienced people to learn off. I already feel at home and totally comfortable with the guys at McLaren. It’s such a well-known and historic ‘brand’ so for me to have been chosen to be part of it makes me thrilled.
“I’m looking forward to the new experiences and opportunities this will open up for me in 2017 as I strive for success in the FIA Formula 3 European Championship.”
Norris joins Nobuharu Matsushita and Nyck de Vries, who are already a part of McLaren’s driver programme which has already seen the likes of Kevin Magnussen and Stoffel Vandoorne be promoted to the senior team.
