Lando Norris feels "more like last year" with McLaren F1 car confidence

"A lot of work has gone into trying to bring these upgrades, and it's always just difficult to anticipate or to know what to expect coming into a new weekend," Norris said. "But since lap one, literally, turn one, everything felt better. I felt a little bit more like last year, with just having some confidence in the car.

"I feel like I've exploited that through the whole day today, so it's a nice start to the weekend. Probably better than we were expecting, honestly. We were expecting better, of course, but we didn't know, in terms of quantity, how it was going to be. So, a little surprise, but a pleasant one for sure."

Lando Norris, McLaren, Zak Brown, McLaren

Lando Norris, McLaren, Zak Brown, McLaren

Norris was less certain about his long run pace, as both Mercedes cars looked superior in Miami's sole 90-minute practice session, with Ferrari looking to be slightly ahead of McLaren too. After the 19-lap sprint, parc ferme opens again for teams to make set-up changes into grand prix qualifying, giving Mercedes a chance to strike back.

"It is just a sprint qualifying, so nothing to be overly proud of in some ways, but still a long weekend ahead of us, "Norris acknowledged. "It's hard to know what everyone does in long runs and everything. Many things can happen. But we started as well as we could have asked for. So, plenty of good things.

"If we're this quick in qualifying, normally you'd expect to continue that into long runs, but there are plenty of unknowns yet. It's still a new car for us. We're still learning things on the go. We're still trying to exploit things. And I'm sure we'll make some improvements into qualifying."

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