Woking (England): Lando Norris, who will debut for McLaren next year as Britain's newest and youngest ever Formula One driver, is a man in a hurry and the 18-year-old already has the speeding fine to prove it.

"It happens to everyone, better own up to it than not," he grinned on Tuesday when the thorny subject was put to him.

Speaking a day after news broke that he will be replacing Belgian Stoffel Vandoorne next year in an all-new line-up with Spaniard Carlos Sainz, Norris relived the excitement of having a dream come true.

"I was smiling for the rest of my flight home," he said after returning to the McLaren factory from the Italian Grand Prix. "I literally didn't stop smiling. It's been a long time coming, to finally make this step into Formula One with McLaren."

The Formula Two title contender was the frontrunner for the job, as a protege of team principal Zak Brown, who snapped him up after he won the McLaren BRDC young driver of the year award in 2016. But it was not an absolute certainty.

"I was told just before the race in Monza. Just as I was leaving I bumped into Zak, which I didn't mean to do. He said he had something to tell me and I wasn't expecting it at all.

"After everyone told me about (Sergio) Perez, (Esteban) Ocon who could get the seat, I was a bit more unsure. So it did come as a bit of a surprise, a bit of a shock. But at the same time I was more or less ready to hear that if it did come."

While following in the footsteps of four-times world champion Lewis Hamilton, the compatriot who started with McLaren in 2007, it is Italian MotoGP great Valentino Rossi that Norris holds up as his boyhood idol.

"I was more into MotoGP before I started watching Formula One. And I loved his colour scheme basically," he said. Reuters