Lando Norris, part of McLaren’s Young Driver Programme, will replace Stoffel Vandoorne for the 2019 season. He will be racing alongside Carlos Sainz, who will be filling the vacant seat left by Fernando Alonso.
Norris has been a member of McLaren since 2017, when the team hired him for the role of Test and Simulator Driver. In addition to completing regular racing simulation work, he has also made a number of test session appearances, including Abu Dhabi in 2017 and the tests at Spain and Hungary in 2018. The team have also used his driving ability in the past two race weekends at Belgium and Italy, allowing him to take over the car for the first free practice session.
This announcement was largely expected. He has had lots of success in the lower formulae, winning the championship title in Formula 3 last season. He currently sits in P2 of the Formula 2 championship, behind Mercedes junior George Russell.
“We already know he’s fast, he learns quickly, and has a mature head on his young shoulders,” explained McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown in a press statement. “We see much potential for our future together. The investment we have made in his budding career with simulator development and seat-time in the car has been well-deserved, as he has continued to prove his abilities both behind the wheel and in his work with the engineering team.”
With this announcement, Stoffel Vandoorne now finds himself without a seat for the 2019 Formula One season and with the only real options being a seat with Sauber, Haas, Williams or Toro Rosso. The Belgian driver has consistently been outperformed by the talent of his teammate Alonso, beating him only when reliability or crashes were a factor.
