Lando Norris does feel his role is increasing within McLaren thanks to the experience of his first season in Formula 1.
Despite plenty of Friday practice runs before making his debut last year in Melbourne, the Briton still faced the usual process of making the step up from a junior/ reserve driver to one of the coveted race seats.
But with the pressure that then comes to perform and deliver results, also comes the need to become one of the leaders in the garage and it’s here where Lando feels he’s slowly improving.
“I guess a little bit, but I’m still much better at driving than anything else,” he said to Motorsport.
“At the same time, just because I’ve done it for a year, people gain a bit of respect and therefore listen to you at the same time a bit more.
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“I mean, I don’t know if I’m classed as a veteran, but I feel more confident within myself and I think at the same time just because you’re in year two, and with McLaren as well, then you are kind of seen as a bit more of a professional in some ways, not someone who was just there for one year.
“People listen and then you do become in a way that bit more of a spokesperson where people rely on you,” Norris admitted.
“They listen to you and they take actions from things you say. So yeah, I think it’s a cool thing.”
Also critical is the feedback the driver gives to improve the car, whether its setup at a race weekend or more broadly with development.
Last year, it was mainly teammate Carlos Sainz largely guiding McLaren in doing that, but the 20-year-old hopes to become more authoritative to help his own performance.
“Say you’re leading the car developments and you’re leading the engineers and aerodynamicists, if they want to develop the car in a certain way, you know your actions and things you say have consequences – not consequences – but they lead to things going better and or maybe worse, basically,” he explained.
“So, I do need to be a bit more precise with the things I say and not just be kind of a rookie and always saying, ‘yes’ and agreeing with everyone.”
Also by having the experience, Norris heads into 2020 “in a much better place coming into my year two, with knowing things I needed to work on.
“And that just allowed me to have a better strategy, a better focus on pre-season testing, knowing those areas that I needed to work on,” he continued.
“That made it much easier in terms of setting our goals, what things we wanted to achieve, and so on and that just allowed me to feel more confident with what I was doing with what the team was doing.
“Mentally, it just put me in a better place, so I just need to make sure that I continue that and then I continue that once we start racing again.”