Lando Norris has admitted that he was surprised by the timing of his 2019 McLaren deal, having expected to have been kept waiting for longer for news of his plans for next year.
Norris joined McLaren’s young driver scheme in 2017 and stepped up to the role of reserve for 2018, undertaking test runs and practice sessions in Belgium and Italy.
McLaren chief Zak Brown confirmed in Italy that four drivers – understood to be Norris, Stoffel Vandoorne, Sergio Perez and Esteban Ocon – were on the team's shortlist as potential partners for Carlos Sainz Jr.
On Monday it was revealed that Norris will step up to a race seat for 2019, with the British young gun having only been informed of his graduation the previous day.
“I was in the Brand Centre at Monza on Sunday, so much later than you probably would have thought,” Norris said.
“I was just about to get my bag of Haribos out for the team, pre-race snacks, and I walked into the office and Zak was in there.
“I said I had a flight to catch and I wasn’t able to stay for the race.
“Then he said, ‘I got somethin’ to tell you’. Then he basically said [about 2019], and I had that whole journey home to think about it.
“Just a cool thing, but until it gets announced officially, that’s when it feels even better. It was a cool moment.
“They’d given me the chance in FP1, but with all of the speculation of Ocon, Perez, it kind of just twisted it a tiny bit, which I think was their plan.
“But even for me, I think they’d rather not say anything just to keep me focusing on whatever I have to do in the weekend.
“I didn’t see it [being told] coming, especially that quickly. It doesn’t really matter how he says it or whatever, it happens.”
Norris had had an indifferent season in Formula 2; he remains in contention for the title but has taken just one win, achieved in the Bahrain season-opener back in April.
Norris asserted that he is “better than I’m currently doing in F2” and reckons his outings in the MCL33 were the “big key” to sealing a 2019 seat.
“At the start of the season, obviously I think everything was going extremely well,” he said.
“It did take a pretty big slump in overall performance, not just from my side, but I think as a team we struggled a tiny bit. In the past few races we’ve got much better.
“I’ve had the Budapest test and some FP1s. I knew that’s more of a pivotal point and how I do on that compared to how I do in Formula 2, in terms of my correlating pace to compare me to how I should be performing basically.
“I knew things weren’t going too great in F2. If I was going to kind of prove that I was still worth it, then I had to do well in the F1 tests, and in both the FP1s I’ve just done.
“As far as everything went on that side of things, I think that was a big point, a big key to being able to get the drive next year.
“I know I’m better than I’m currently doing in F2, but it’s just not going well. I’m still working hard and trying to make improvements on that side of things, especially for Sochi.
“I’m still trying to win Formula 2 and do the best job I can, because I don’t want it to say on my CV ‘win win win win win win, loss, Formula 1’. I don’t want it to say that, so I’m still doing everything I can to win it.”
