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 ru🐻sh his development🍸 and rise up the racing ladder.

Norris joined 𒐪McLaren'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 curren🐷tly 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 tꦕoo quickly, with the team currently planning to place him 🎀in Formula 2 next year.

"No team has made a request [to loanꦡ 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 makeꦇ sure not to rush things and give him enough experience.

"He’s definitely our star of the futꦺure, 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 wouꦅld be taken on his future in the coming weeks.

"He’s doing a 🔯lot of simulator work for us and doing extrꦑemely 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 somethi🔯ng Eric [Boullier] is working on🎐.

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