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

Norris joined McLaren's junior programme at the start of the year and e🔯njoyed his f🍰irst 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 hisജ 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 Formulꦰa 2 next year.

"No team hasౠ 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 mak𓂃e sure not to rush things and give him enough experience.

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

Besides Norris, McLaren alsꦚo has Nyck de Vries on its junior programme, c🌺urrently racing in F2.

Brown was pleased with de Vries' work and contribution to the team, but said a d🌸ecision 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 ou🐓r junior programme for next year," Brown said.

"We’ve obviously got Lando signed up൲, Nyck currently, but t🔯hat’s something Eric [Boullier] is working on.

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