Ahead of competing in his home grand prix for the first time, Bristol's Formula One star Lando Norris couldn't have received a bigger boost after being unexpectedly handed a new three-year contract by McLaren.
Norris, 19, has only competed in nine grands prix but such has been in impact in F1, McLaren have moved quickly to lock the former Millfield pupil down to a three-year deal.
Norris heads to Silverstone for Sunday's British Grand Prix with a further spring in his step after matching his best result of the season so far at the Austrian GP 10 days ago in which he finished sixth.
“It’s good to see McLaren have faith in me and back up what they’ve said in that I have been doing a good job so far,” he said.
“I wasn’t pushing for it. I wasn’t saying I want the deal done by Silverstone. It was out of the blue last week. It doesn’t change too much because I wasn’t thinking about it, or worried about it, but it gives me a bit more confidence.
"It has been pretty awesome. It has gone better than I expected."
Norris has outqualified his more experienced teammate Carlos Sainz Jnr 6-3 and impressed not just with his overall race speed but his calmness and maturity on the track.
He lies eighth in the drivers standings on 22 points, eight adrift of Sainz, with McLaren well set to finish best of the rest outside of the big three teams of Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull.
McLaren team principal Zak Brown has revealed Sainz will also continue and that other manufacturers have been sniffing round the two young drivers, leading them to locking the pair down for the future.
With Norris and Sainz at the wheel and developing at an impressive rate, McLaren can plot a return to the glory days of the 1980s and 90s when they would dominate the drivers and contructors championships.
"It was always the plan," Brown said, "but a lot of teams were sniffing around, a lot of teams are unhappy with both their drivers and given how Carlos and Lando were doing it was in our best interest to eliminate any speculation."
