2021 was very much a breakthrough campaign for Lando Norris as the Brit thoroughly impressed during last year, his third season in Formula 1.

Despite teammate Daniel Ricciardo taking his seventh F1 victory and the first for McLaren in almost nine years at Monza last September, Norris had a clear edge over the Australian and ended up 45 points ahead at the end of the campaign.

The 22-year-old scored four podiums and also secured his first pole position at the Russian Grand Prix.

He almost won his first F1 race in Sochi the following day until rain intervened in the closing stages as he made the mistake of staying out on dry tyres whilst leading from Lewis Hamilton.

Norris finished P6 in the standings, just 4.5 points adrift of former teammate Carlos Sainz as tyre issues in Qatar and Abu Dhabi cost him dearly.

Andrea Stella, McLaren’s Executive Racing Director, praised Norris for his development and believes the British star is now one of the strongest drivers on the grid when it comes to raw speed.

“On Lando's side, in his third year of Formula 1, he has developed in terms of pure speed,” the Italian told MotorLat and other select media.

“I am confident to say in terms of pure speed, he is one of the strongest drivers on the grid.

“I think this is true in all conditions; it's enough to think of some performances in the wet and also the pole position he scored in Russia was in transitional conditions. In Q3 we shifted from intermediate to soft compound.

“With Lando we also worked on improving the race craft, so the capacity to score points and I think this is in a way proven by the facts.”

For 2022, Stella wants Norris to continue on the path he showed in 2021, by delivering great performances on a consistent basis.

“Where I see the opportunity with Lando is on consolidating these very high standards that he has achieved in every single session.

“So we want more consistency of deploying this level of top performance.”