McLaren F1 boss Andreas Seidl says Lando Norris' outstanding podium result in Austria reflects his driver's build-up in confidence and experience in the past year.
Norris impressed in his maiden season with McLaren last year, but the 20-year-old hit the ground running in Austria's 2020 curtain-raiser in which he finished third and became the third youngest podium finisher in the history of F1.
From his P4 performance in qualifying to his spirited drive on Sunday, Norris displayed a speed and consistency of a seasoned racer, qualities that reflect the young charger's burgeoning talent but also an ongoing maturing process.
"For a driver it is important to create this momentum for himself as it gives him the confidence he needs to pull it off when it matters in qualifying and the race," Seidl said.
"Lando was simply building it up as he started well last year.
"You could see that last year in his race starts when he started carefully at the beginning, and then once he had a bit of confidence and races under his belt, he was there.
"With the work he has done together with his team over the winter, I think he simply made the next step.
"I am very happy, very happy with the team, so we can have some great results with him in the future."
Norris' maiden podium was in doubt until the final lap as the McLaren driver had to overhaul Lewis Hamilton, not on the track, but in the final time classification given the Mercedes driver's five-second time penalty.
With the help of his race engineer who cued the timely use the overtake button, Norris pulled out all the stops to gain 0.8 seconds on Hamilton on the final lap.
"At some point we all thought we missed the podium when Leclerc went through, but obviously we were communicating the gaps to Lando about Lewis," Seidl explained.
"Then when he got his penalty, Lando was prepared for his last laps in terms of getting the maximum of everything that the car had.
©McLaren
"[For] Lando to pull it off like that is impressive, and if you look now at the whole weekend, it is impressive what Lando has done.
"It also shows that as we expected from him, he developed, or made the next step as a driver, which you would also expect after your rookie season in Formula 1.
"He did very well in analysing last year's season and looking into how he could be even better prepared going into this next season. He grew up in terms of personality and character.
"How he was approaching the first race of the season, I was very impressed. I am sure we will have a lot more fun with him in the future."
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