Norris 'Same Category' As Other World Champions On F1 Grid According To Stella

Sunday, 28 January 2024 at 15:00

McLaren team principal Andrea Stella categorized Lando Norris as one of the champion quality drivers amid a new contract extension.

Lando Norris made a decision to stay with his Papaya team at least until the end of the season 2027. The details of his contract are not public, but his previous one lasted until the end of the 2025 season, and he is believed to have signed a "multi-year" deal.

From the beginning, the CEO of McLaren, Zak Brown, made it clear the team was very keen on keeping their driver. The team principal of the team, Andrea Stella, expressed how he perceives Norris. According to the official F1 website, he said:

"Lando definitely stands together with them [world champion quality drivers]. It’s the same category, same kind of World Championship material, the underlying talent, the mindset, the work ethos, it’s all ready to go."

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One characteristic that the team principal observes about the World Champions is that they only keep getting better with each season.

"Real champions, they seem to just improve year by year, and I think that’s the case; that’s the case because they use their intelligence, their ethos, they get the best people around them, they do whatever it takes to get better and better because the sport gets only more and more competitive."

Stella pointed to what Jenson Button lately said: Norris's talent and potential were evident from the first FP1 practice with the team.

"So definitely, we have all the raw material, which we saw already, when Lando was doing the Free Practice 1 with us, it was very evident in 2018."

So far, the 24-year-old has exhibited traits of a World Champion as he grew with every season, but he needs to keep doing so for the years to come. McLaren team principal added:

"Then it kept growing; it’s there, we just need to keep growing year after year, which every champion does, but we are extremely happy and committed to Lando in this respect."