Though he earned most of the attention this past weekend at Daytona, Fernando Alonso believes the performance of his teammate and McLaren reserve driver Lando Norris shouldn’t be ignored.
At just 18, the Briton is already earning a healthy reputation after winning the European Formula 3 title last year and impressing on his McLaren debut at the Hungary test last year, both of which resulted in his promotion to third driver for this season.
Driving alongside Alonso and Phil Hanson, Norris, who will compete in F2 in 2018, admitted the Daytona experience was about learning from and comparing himself with the double F1 champion and the Spaniard certainly noticed.
“It’s not a surprise [to me], but for the people that don’t know Lando, it will be a surprise for them,” Fernando said. “The things he did were very impressive. The teamwork, the preparation, the focus.”
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Though their United Autosports entry ended in disappointment, with a puncture and brake issues resulting in an eventual 38th place finish, Norris’ pace in one part of the race particularly stood out to Alonso.
“At night if you look, when we switched to wet tyres for one stint, we were fifth, one minute behind the leader, then we switched to slick tyres again in damp conditions – all this with Lando driving – and we were 27 seconds behind the leaders,” the 36-year-old stated.
“So even in wet conditions, his first time in a prototype, first time in Daytona, first time with Continental tyres, he recovered 33 seconds in 20 laps or something like that, so that is quite impressive…”
