Lando shows good pace in Hungary & Austria

Lando Norris is eagerly looking ahead to getting his maiden FIA Formula 3 European Championship underway at Silverstone next month after clocking up over 900-miles in official testing. The 17-year-old also set the third overall – the quickest “rookie” – plus second fastest “rookie” times in Hungary and Austria respectively over the past week at the wheel of his Carlin Dallara-Volkswagen.

The championship organised two-day “official” tests at the Hungaroring (24-25 Mar) and the Red Bull Ring (28-29 Mar) in Austria totalled over 16-hours of available track time for this year’s near 20-car field that reconvenes for the first three races of the year at Silverstone over Easter (13-16 April). Lando, a “McLaren-Honda Young Driver”, completed 148-laps around the 2.72-mile Hungaroring near Budapest setting a best lap time of 1min 34.125secs – having topped the time sheets on the first day. At the Red Bull Ring, the BRDC SuperStar clocked a best of 1min 23.286secs from 191-laps around the 2.69-mile Austrian track. Both venues are on the F3 race calendar later this year.

Norris, the reigning Formula Renault EuroCup and Formula Renault Northern European Cup champion, will be contesting a full F3 season for the first time having made his F3 Euro Series début at the final event of 2016 at Hockenheim and then racing at Macau – both with Carlin.

Lando Norris: “The tests have been really productive and have put us in a good position for the opening races at Silverstone next month. “I was generally pleased with my times but they’re pretty meaningless until first qualifying at Silverstone – that’s when I’ll know exactly where I am in terms of true pace against the others. That said, I only have positive feelings after the tests in Hungary and Austria.”