With his devastating speed and the dismantling of his new McLaren teammate Daniel Ricciardo, Lando Norris has firmly established himself as one of the top talents in Formula 1.
Norris was ousted by Carlos Sainz during their two seasons together, so many – including myself – named Ricciardo team leader at McLaren in 2021, having had a good record against Nico Hulkenberg and Esteban Ocon in the previous two seasons.
The 22-year-old was an outstanding performance in the first half of the year and finished in the top five in nine of the first 10 races, ahead of Mercedes-Valtteri Bottas and Red-Bull-Sergio Perez.
Without running a little far in his Q3 race at Imola, Norris might have taken pole position, but he made up for it with a good start to third place on race day.
Related articles
On the eve of the Monaco weekend, Norris signed a new multi-year deal with McLaren – a well-deserved reward for a driver whose performances were only dwarfed in the first half of the season by Max Verstappen.
Norris was on the podium in Monaco and followed shortly afterwards with another good drive to third place in the Austrian Grand Prix after starting from the front row behind Verstappen.
Related articles
The McLaren driver was the favorite for pole position in the wet at Spa, but crashed into Eau Rouge on his first run in Q3.
The speed was there and his first victory was sure to be around the corner if he had his way.
As expected, McLaren had the pace at Monza with his straightforward performance that acted as a strong defensive buffer against Mercedes and Red Bull, but it was Ricciardo who made the most of it.
In a typical opportunistic manner – as he made it into the habit during his time at Red Bull – Ricciardo Bottas used the start mistakes and sluggish starts for the two title contenders to take the lead and control the race from the front.
Norris backed his teammate to give McLaren their first 1-2 of the season at Monza, which surprisingly was the team’s only 1-2 result for the entire season.
The big moment for the young Brit finally came in Sochi after he had secured his first pole position in qualifying on a dry track with a timely switch to slick tires.
Norris had the race under control, despite pressure from a recovering Lewis Hamilton, until late rain and a refusal to switch to Inters cost him his maiden F1 win.
It was a hard pill to swallow, but another sign that Norris was the real deal.
His and McLaren’s form never seemed to recover. Ferrari’s recovery in the second half of the year and Norris’ bad luck (breakdowns in Qatar and Abu Dhabi) dropped him to sixth place in the drivers’ championship, while the team took fourth in the drivers’ championship.
Norris can’t allow his bad luck or a slight drop in performance to spoil his impressive 2021 campaign.
Should McLaren give him the car, there is no doubt that Norris will be ready to go all the way in 2022.
