Norris Carlin And I Can Shine

The next chapter for MABA winner Lando Norris is to conquer European Formula 3 . 

- Jack Cozens

Behind Lando Norris’s seemingly endless ascent through the junior racing ranks, there’s been a very methodological approach to mapping out his future steps.

“We decided – me and my management team – that it was the best thing to take time and learn everything,” says the 17-year-old. “Obviously Max Verstappen was a one-off; he went straight into F3 and then to F1 in two years, and it probably won’t be done again – it can’t be done again at the moment because of the [Superlicence points] rules brought in as a result.”

And that approach has certainly paid off so far. Save for a full campaign in Ginetta Junior – where he was third in his first year of car racing – and BRDC British F3 in 2016, in which he only contested a half-season, Norris has won everything he’s done. MSA Formula? Check. Formula Renault Eurocup and NEC? Completed it. Toyota Racing Series? You can even chuck the McLaren Autosport BRDC Award in there – you get the idea…

For all Norris’s remarkable achievements so far, though, there’s an ordinary teenager – one who’s aware of his limitations and very patient, both in profile and in his quest to reach the top.

His next step will no doubt be the highest-profile one of his career – a move into European Formula 3. His deal to race in the series with Carlin was one of the worst kept secrets of the off-season, with Norris admitting there was only one winner when it came to deciding on his 2017 direction.

“At the start of 2016, before we decided to do Formula Renault, there was the possibility of doing F3. But we decided to do another learning year, in Renault, and then move up. It was 99 per cent, always going to be Formula 3; obviously there was a bit of talk about possibly doing GP3 instead, but we found that F3 was probably the best route to go down.