Zak Brown confident Lando Norris is ready for F1

McLaren executive director Zak Brown is confident that 17-year-old Lando Norris is ready to make the step up to Formula 1, but does not want to rush his development and rise up the racing ladder.

Norris joined McLaren's junior programme at the start of the year and enjoyed his first F1 test in Hungary last month, impressing the paddock with a mature and quick display.

The British driver currently leads the FIA European Formula 3 championship during his rookie season, and is widely tipped to be a future star in F1.

Despite being sure that Norris is ready to step up to F1, Brown is uneasy about moving too quickly, with the team currently planning to place him in Formula 2 next year.

"No team has made a request [to loan him for F1 2018]. Our current plans are to put him into Formula 2," Brown said.

"I certainly think he’s fast enough to be in Formula 1, but you also need to make sure not to rush things and give him enough experience.

"He’s definitely our star of the future, and I don’t think we’d put him into another Formula 1 team."

Besides Norris, McLaren also has Nyck de Vries on its junior programme, currently racing in F2.

Brown was pleased with de Vries' work and contribution to the team, but said a decision would be taken on his future in the coming weeks.

"He’s doing a lot of simulator work for us and doing extremely well. We’ve not taken a decision yet on our junior programme for next year," Brown said.

"We’ve obviously got Lando signed up, Nyck currently, but that’s something Eric [Boullier] is working on.

"We’ve got some meetings this month and then it’s really for Eric to say the direction of the junior programme."