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Lando Norris’ promotion to reserve driver at McLaren is just the latest in a long line of accomplishments for the prodigiously talented Glastonbury racer.

And his achievements show no sign of slowing down, even after the 17-year-old became the youngest driver ever to win the European Formula Three championship last month.

Norris’ results at junior level have been so impressive that it is now seen as a matter of when, rather than if, he gets his chance in Formula One, and his growing list of honours make it easy to see why he is being tipped for the very top.

It is difficult to find a driver with a junior career to match Norris’. Of the six full championships that he has tackled on the way up, he has taken the title in five of them.

In the other, he came third, that coming in the Ginetta Junior Championship as a mere 14-year-old, the two competitors that beat him in Jack Mitchell and James Kellett having already notched up a season in the series.

(Image: Getty Images)

Even in a world where many drivers are being touted as the next big thing, Norris’ CV is no less than extraordinary.

Lewis Hamilton, now rightly regarded as one of the all-time greats of Formula One after becoming world champion in Mexico last month, took two seasons to win the British Formula Renault title. It took him the same amount of time to clinch the Euro F3 crown, the same championship that Norris has now won as a rookie.

Even Charles Leclerc, the Monegasque driver making waves in the junior ranks this year with a dominant surge to the F2 crown, cannot quite match Norris’ progress up the junior ladder, with a runner-up spot in Formula Renault 2.0 and a fourth place finish in his sole Euro F3 campaign, again both championships that the former Millfield School pupil took first time out.

Esteban Ocon and Nico Hulkenberg are two others who came into Formula One lauded for their results in the lower formulae, but Norris can boast better results than them too. Ocon failed to win a title in two seasons in Formula Renault, while Hulkenberg only took the European F3 crown at the second time of asking.

You could repeat this cycle ad infinitum, for to find a driver who has outshone Norris at junior level, and who spent more than one year in cars before reaching F1, you have to go all the way back to the legendary Ayrton Senna, who won every full championship he ever competed in during a grounding which lasted from 1981 until 1983.

Sebastian Vettel, Michael Schumacher and Mika Hakkinen all impressed on the way up, but even they suffered setbacks.

When you take into account Norris’ results, his determination to race in as many categories as possible, his superb first official Formula One test for McLaren at Hungary in the summer, and his attention to detail that sees him spend countless hours driving in simulators and online as well as in the real thing, it is no surprise that McLaren have moved to snap him up.

Norris may still have some way to go until he is ready to make that final step into Formula One, but based on all the evidence that exists right now, one thing cannot be denied. He is the real deal, and he looks destined to be Britain’s next great hope.