Single-seater star Norris becomes McLaren junior

Norris, a former world karting champion, has made headlines in his two years in single-seaters so far, as he racked up four drivers' titles – in the British MSA F4 series, the off-season Toyota Racing Series in New Zealand and Formula Renault 2.0 categories Eurocup and NEC.

The 17-year-old is the most recent winner of the McLaren Autosport BRDC Award and will contest the European F3 series with Carlin in 2017.

“I regard Lando as a fabulous prospect,” said McLaren executive director Zak Brown. “He blew the doors off his rivals in not one but three highly competitive race series last year, then capped that by establishing himself as the clear winner of the McLaren Autosport BRDC Award.

“It was an impressively mature performance, and we’ll be developing him this year as part of our simulator team, whereby he’ll be contributing directly and importantly to our Formula 1 campaign at the same time as honing and improving his technical feedback capabilities.”

Also named in the programme are Honda junior Nobuharu Matsushita and long-standing McLaren protege Nyck de Vries.

Matsushita, a former Japanese F3 champion, will be contesting his third GP2 campaign with ART Grand Prix this year.

De Vries, who has been a McLaren man since karting and, like Norris, won titles in Formula Renault 2.0, is staying on with the Woking team – despite his participation in Ferrari's shootout to replace Gianmaria Bruni in WEC and subsequent reports that the Dutchman was in line for a Ferrari GT role.

According to McLaren's statement, de Vries' 2017 schedule will be confirmed “shortly”.