McLaren is confident that it can avoid Lando Norris becoming the latest young driver to have an unfulfilling short stay at the team, having appointed him to a 2019 race seat.
Norris will graduate to a Formula 1 seat aged just 19, his reputation having been enhanced by eye-catching test runs and multiple titles in junior single-seater categories.
McLaren’s recent history with highly-rated youngsters has been sketchy at best.
The team prised Sergio Perez from Ferrari’s academy for 2013 as a replacement for Mercedes-bound Lewis Hamilton, but he was ousted after just a year in favour of Kevin Magnussen.
Then-Formula Renault 3.5 champion Magnussen spent only a season racing for McLaren before he was replaced by Fernando Alonso for 2015.
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Long-term McLaren junior Stoffel Vandoorne stepped up for 2017 with a distinguished single-seater career that included wins in Formula Renault 3.5, Super Formula and a dominant title in the GP2 Series.
But McLaren is to dispense with the Belgian’s services after just two years and will instead line-up in 2019 with Norris partnering ex-STR racer and current Renault ‘loanee’ Carlos Sainz Jr.
“I think McLaren need a fresh start, and I think as a team, they need two young drivers who are willing to say ‘we don’t need to win, we don’t want to win’, let’s say, within the first two years of joining the team,” stressed Norris.
“I think as long as I do a good job and put in all my effort to proving that I’m worth it, then everything should be fine.
“I’ve been given two FP1s, a couple of tests, three tests, four tests, and I think within those few tests, I’ve proved that I’ve done a good enough job, especially in the FP1s where it really counts and matters, that I’m able to deliver when I need to and I’ve got the pace.
“They want to help me develop into however they need me to be, pretty much. Every driver is different, so I just hope whatever I do is going to be good enough, because it’s not that I just want to be with McLaren. I want to win with McLaren. I don’t think it’s going to be in the next two years, I think it’s more of a longer project than just being with the team for one year.”
On-track success has deserted McLaren in recent years but Zak Brown, who joined as its new boss prior to the 2017 campaign, says a changed culture that has been fostered will enable Norris to develop, recognising that its previous approach did not work.
“We brought in Gil de Ferran for the human performance of the team and the drivers and maybe historically we’ve not been great with young drivers because of the environment that we’re in so we’re looking for Gil to make sure we learn from some of the mistakes we’ve maybe made in the past,” Brown commented, having also accepted that McLaren did not provide Vandoorne with the machinery he deserved.
“My style and our style is I think you’ve got to make race car drivers comfortable and let them operate in a manner which you think you can get the most out of them.
“If you look at Alonso, I think Alonso is a better example of how McLaren operates today. Obviously when Fernando was here 10 years ago that relationship didn’t work and then here we are having pretty poor three years and I think you’d all say you haven’t seen him with a smile on his face as often as he has had. I think that’s because we’re letting him operate in a manner in which I think he enjoys the environment and we get the most out of him.
“[Lando’s] very mature for his age in the racing environment. He’s quite relaxed, you don’t see him get nervous, I’ve not seen anxiety out of him. When I saw him do FP1 in Monza, his build-up to that morning was no different to what I’ve seen in Formula 3. So I think he’s got a really good temperament for Formula 1 and what that tells me is I don’t think he’ll be rattled easily by adversity, which no doubt he will have at some point.”
Norris has watched from the side lines as Vandoorne’s McLaren F1 dream has soured into a nightmare. There are parallels between Norris and Vandoorne’s pre-F1 trajectories in terms of reputation and talent, but the Belgian has struggled to assert himself in the top echelon, the only driver on this year’s grid with a 14-0 defeat in qualifying to their team-mate, recognising that he has had difficulties in adapting his driving style to F1.
“I think if I can learn anything from Stoffel and from the team as to why they don’t think he was good enough, why they think I could be better, whatever I can [do] to help myself improve and whatever they can do to help myself improve…” Norris ponders.
“I think especially with Gil coming in, I think they have much more of an understanding now of what needs to be done for myself and Carlos and helping us improve and show what we can do.
“I think Stoff, I rate as a pretty damn good driver, probably higher than most other drivers on the grid. But yeah, I think getting put against Fernando, going into Formula 1 when McLaren are probably at their worst ever, it’s not easy, coming from championships where you can be in such a good team, always challenging for the win, and then going into a category where there’s so many good drivers, out of how many people and drivers in the world to be there with only 20 drivers, they’re all pretty damn good.
“I think it’s just an unlucky circumstance basically that he was thrown in at probably the deepest end possible.
“But yeah, I think anything I can learn from what he’s not done well enough, what he’s done good, even from the FPs I’ve done, I’ve already learned from him. There are things altogether which can help me and hopefully not go down the same path.”
The change in culture at McLaren should also be of assistance to Norris. Perez and Magnussen both joined a team entering a dip that it believed was a mere aberration, while Vandoorne’s promotion came in the midst of an assertion that the Honda partnership would flourish. It is little wonder that none of the three thrived amid the uncertainty and at-times toxic political manoeuvres off-track, and having to drive unpredictable cars on it. All three went up against World Champions in Jenson Button and Fernando Alonso and while neither went out of their way to harm their young team-mates, their presence and experience undoubtedly meant that they wielded more of the power. Going up against Carlos Sainz Jr. should release some of the pressure.
McLaren accepted earlier in the year that its ambitions for 2018 had been too lofty and acknowledged that it is an underachieving powerhouse which faces “years” before it can re-emerge as a front-runner. It is into that environment that Norris is being parachuted, with the emphasis from both driver and team very much on the long-term. There will be bad qualifying performances. There will be crashes. There will be moments where he has subdued races. Both parties must hope that lessons from previous mistakes can be put into place to ensure that Norris is given the environment and space to grow and develop – and do so with McLaren.
