World kart champion to MSA Formula

World karting champion Lando Norris will make his car racing debut in MSA Formula next season aged 15.

The 14-year-old, who graduated to senior-level karting this year as the European KF Junior champion, has dovetailed his senior KF world title-winning season with his debut in the UK. He has won three races in the Ginetta Junior series, which forms part of the British Touring Car Championship package that MSA Formula will replace British Formula Ford on, and lies third in the standings after a season that has also included his first test runs in a single-seater.

Norris, who turns 15 in November, is the first driver to commit to the series as a result of the Motor Sport Association lowering the UK single-seater age limit for 2015, with his management team ADD Motorsports previously looking at possible European alternatives.

"It's always something I've wanted to do and we were always going to do [after Juniors]," said Norris. "It should be good and really fun. I'm more used to the speed now, the race weekends and the circuits. It would have been a lot harder to jump straight into single-seaters."

Fortec Motorsport boss Richard Dutton, whose team runs Norris' ADD stablemates Mitch Gilbert and John Bryant-Meisner in European Formula 3, had previously urged the MSA to lower the age limit to 15 to ensure young Britons raced domestically instead of moving abroad straight out of karting.

Dutton, who was not willing to commit to the series unless that rule change happened, has since revealed plans to run four cars in the new FIA-backed championship and revealed that he was keen on having Norris as part of its lineup.

"He is high up on our priority list," said Dutton. "We're talking to four or five drivers already and he's somebody we're looking at."