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Lando Norris says that he has learned a lot from watching Fernando Alonso over the past couple of years. Norris joined the McLaren junior programme in 2017 and will make his Grand Prix debut next year for the Woking squad, partnering Carlos Sainz.
McLaren has refreshed its line-up of Alonso and Stoffel Vandoorne that it has run for the past two seasons. Alonso made the call earlier this year to not race in F1 next season, while McLaren took the decision to replace Vandoorne with Norris.
Vandoorne struggled alongside Alonso for their two years together, and failed to out-qualify the Spaniard throughout the whole of 2018. Norris claims that he has learned a lot from watching the two as teammates over the last two seasons.
“I rate him as a very good driver,” he told RaceFans.net. “I raced with him at Daytona, I’ve watched him race obviously in all these Formula 1 races. We’ve done a lot of things together, we get along really well.
“He’s a really nice guy and I think it’s good for me to see how much effort, how much work he puts into every race weekend. What things he does differently to Stoffel and Stoffel does differently to Fernando and work out all the good things about any driver.
“So there’s a lot of things I’ve learned from Fernando. I got to know him at a much earlier point in my career than any other driver. [I’ve seen] what he does, how he acts, how he does life. He’s the first guy I’ve always looked up to within Formula 1, mainly because of joining McLaren and getting to know him a bit more.”
Grand Prix of Belgium
C. Sainz jr
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calle.itw
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Norris looked interesting to me, but I've cooled off on him. Stoffel did better, and look where he is at. Ya think Norris will do well?