Lando Norris endured a “messy” practice session in Bahrain but is confident that he and McLaren will find improvements going forward in the weekend.
The McLaren driver ended FP2 at the bottom of the timesheets having failed to set a representative lap, making an error on his qualifying simulation run.
Despite the low-sitting position in the order, Norris clarified that McLaren enjoyed a positive day of practice having successfully run through its programme.
“I think it was a decent day actually, probably a little bit better than I was expecting overall,” Norris said.
“It wasn’t my best day, just a bit messy from my part, I didn’t put everything together at all times. But hopefully I got that out of the way and I can do a better job [on Friday].
“A good day for us, we tried some things and progressed with our understanding of the car a little bit more.
“There’s progress made but still plenty of things to try and improve on.”
Norris’ grid prediction
McLaren enters the campaign hoping to continue the strong momentum that took it to nine podium results last season.
Mercedes topped the timesheets at the end of FP2 – but Norris is confident that Red Bull is still at the forefront of the field with the rest of the grid in a close battle behind.
“I think it’s still clear that Red Bull is towards the top, Ferrari is close, Mercedes is always a question mark,” Norris said.
“They were never going to be bad, so it always gets close, especially in qualifying. Even Haas is up there and they apparently didn’t change the car at all.
“It’s always close in qualifying in Bahrain, so I think it’s going to be a tricky qualifying no matter what.
“It’s exciting for everyone, but every little bit we can get out of the car, we need to get out.”
