Lando Norris doesn’t think matching the success of Lewis Hamilton is impossible, just not right now at McLaren.
Comparisons between the two British drivers are always likely given both made at least part of their way up the motorsport ladder under the guidance of the Woking-based team.
Norris joined in 2017 after winning the McLaren Autosport BRDC award a year earlier, earning him a test at Silverstone, and that experience means he felt less overawed when he made his F1 debut this season.
“Because I had been with them [McLaren] for two-and-a-half years almost so I felt more at ease with that kind of thing,” he told GrandPrix247.com.
“When I first joined, it’s a big place with so many people, a lot of history, you kind of feel a bit intimidated but yeah, because I did some FP1s, because I did testing, I was at a lot of the race weekends last year either doing F2 or when I wasn’t I was still doing FP1, so I had a nice introduction and knew everyone, and that made it much easier for me to take the step into the seat.”
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Norris had admitted he was quite a late convert to F1, having grown up idolising Valentino Rossi in MotoGP.
But with his first memories of the sport being Hamilton racing against Fernando Alonso in 2007, he admits to now be on the same grid as the five-time champion is quite surreal.
“It’s weird thinking again how far away F1 would ever be and then thinking straight to now ‘I’m in Formula 1’ not really racing against Lewis, but we’re on the same track,” he admitted.
“In Austria, we did fight very briefly, which was cool. Hopefully, I can do more of it! It’s cool because it’s not something I believed I could really do, then getting the opportunity now and thinking how amazing it was to maybe one day race them, and now here I am with McLaren.”
Asked if he could see himself one day repeating the success that Hamilton has had, Norris was realistic.
“Not really, he joined McLaren when they were in a very different way. They could win races, now we can’t… Not yet! So it’s incomparable,” he explained.
“As much as one day I’d love to be able to achieve what he has, people are always in different situations in life. I’m in a different situation to what he was, so I’m not saying it’s impossible but it’s just incomparable, basically.”
McLaren is enjoying an upturn in results in 2019 though, currently sitting fourth in the Constructors’ standings and with an ambitious plan to once again become a race-winning outfit.
“It’s three years or something it’s going to take for us to get back to possibly winning races, not even a guarantee, it’s a chance – so then we’re ready four years after he was, so you just can’t compare it,” the 19-year-old continued.
“It’s something I hope can look forward to trying to do in the future, but I’m happy where I am and I still would’ve been happy even if I was with them last year.
“This year is a better situation to be in than last year, but at the same time, I’m just happy to be in Formula 1 in the first place.”
