Norris relying on 'confidence and experience' to further boost performance

McLaren's Lando Norris says the confidence and experience garnered with each passing race will continue to boost his performance in 2021.

Norris heads into his third season of F1, having contributed 97 points to McLaren's championship tally last year, a wealth of points that included a career-firs podium thanks to his P3 finish in Austria at the start of his breakthrough 2020 campaign.

Overall, the 21-year-old's solid progress across the board was one of the highlights of McLaren's season last year.

"We’re all extremely pleased by how Lando has developed from test and development driver in 2017, to Britain’s youngest podium finisher in 2020," said team boss Andreas Seidl ahead of the unveiling on Monday evening of McLaren's new MCL35M.

"His passion and experience for the sport are growing hand-in-hand, and he’s now one of the fastest and most exciting racing drivers on the grid."

Like his high-profile teammate Daniel Ricciardo with whom he forms one of F1's most intriguing line-ups this year, Norris is raring to get back to the grind and ready to resume his growth.

"I’m really excited to be back working with the team ahead of my third season in Formula 1," said the Briton.

"Every time I get into the car I feel like I’m growing in confidence and experience, which helps me build my performance year-on-year.

"I’ve been working hard personally throughout the off-season to be as sharp as I can when we get to pre-season testing, and I can’t wait to get back in the car soon."

• Read also: Ricciardo buoyed by 'sense of unity and focus' at McLaren

A popular character with McLaren's fans and with F1's audience in general, not least thanks to his often facetious presence on social media, Norris is hoping that the coming months will finally see an impassioned public head back to the track and to the grandstands.

"I’m looking forward to going back to some of the countries we couldn’t race at last year, hopefully with fans as well at some point, who create such an incredible atmosphere in every country we race in," he added.

"We’ve really missed having our fans trackside and until we can meet again in person, I’ll be working as hard as I can to give them a good show.

"2021 is going to be another challenging year on-track with close competition, but I’m just focused on getting back to racing and giving it my all."

And he'll likely need to pull out the stops this season to contend with the man that will be sitting on the other side of the McLaren garage, one Daniel Ricciardo.

But Norris believes there are only positives to the Aussie's arrival at McLaren.

"Mainly from, as a guy who has been accredited – he can win races, he can score podiums, he is good in probably every single area!" Norris said

"So for me, to kind of learn that little bit more from a different driver; get to know someone who has a different approach on things, and not kind of just get into the same habits that you get to know from one particular driver.”

"So, it is good for me to just experience something different within Formula 1, get to see how another driver performs – because in Formula 3 or Formula 4 you sometimes have 3 or 4 teammates.

"So you’re able to work with a lot of different people, whereas F1 & F2 is just one teammate, it is a bit harder to know as much, you kind of get used to working with one particular way or style with that other driver; so to kind of switch it up and to get to know someone different, learn how he approaches his races and his whole mindset of F1 is also going to be really interesting."

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