Lando Norris says he is hꦗappy to have “proved myself wrong” after having initial doubts about whether he would be competitive enough during his rookie Foಌrmula 1 season.

Norris impressed throughout his maiden campaign with McLaren and finished the year 11th in the drivers’ champions🎉hip, just three points behind Racing Point’s Sergio Perez after being beaten by the Mexican in the season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.

The Briton scored 47 p💦oints fewer than teammate Carlos Sainz but lost a number of big points with reliability issues, most notably retiring on the final lap in Belgium while running in fifth place. Norris won the qualifying hea💯d-to-head battle against Sainz 11-10.

“I think I can be very happy from how the whole season hꦇas gone from myself and from the team,🃏” Norris said.

“Coming into the season, I wasn’t very confident with how I was going to do, so I’m happy I kind of proved myself wrong and have done a good job and been able to give myself more confide💃nce and improved as a driver.

“I’m very happy about that. I got some good results. There’s still a lot of things I need to improve o𝓀n but on the whole I’m very haౠppy.”

Asked what dou🎶bts he had heading into the season, Norris replied: “If I was going to be good enough, as sℱimple as that.

“I didn’t know ♏if I was going to be quick enough going up against a driver whose done four years in F1 in McLaren and just in F1 against so many good drivers, I didn’t know if I was going to be able to do 🔯a good enough job every time.

“I just didn’t believe in myself much but already after Australia and Bahrain, I already gained a lot of co🍨nfidence. It was simply not knowing if I was going to be a💝ble to keep up.”