Norris expects few overtaking attempts: 'Then you go into the wall'

Lando Norris and the McLaren team have started a race weekend worse this season. The Briton finished neatly in eighth place in the second free practice, even ahead of Lewis Hamilton. The difference to Max Verstappen was eight tenths of a second.

Earlier in the day, during the team bosses' press conference, Zak Brown indicated that the McLaren is not that bad at all. "But it's not as good as it should be" the McLaren CEO told us. "And Bahrain, we were definitely off the pace. Saudi, I think we would have had two cars in Q3. Lando made an uncharacteristic, very small mistake. And then Oscar got run over by a Haas driver. Actually, that was a racing incident."

'Not as bad as said'

He continued, "So I don't think we were able to really race properly in Saudi. Baku, we were much improved. And Australia was decent. So, yeah, we're not where we want to be. But it's not been as bad as maybe people are quick to report after you have one bad race."

Indeed, Miami showed the (tentative) potential of the McLaren. Speaking to Sky Sports, Norris said of the positive day. "It was a positive day. A clean amount of running and we stuck to it. Learnt a lot about the tyres and the soft and Oscar with the hard. I think today, we maybe seemed a little bit better than what we were expecting. The upgrades we had in Baku provided us with a little bit more help here which is a good thing. In terms of grip, it's low, but it has got a lot better than as the sessions progressed. The only thing that is tricky is if you go off line you will go into the wall, which will make the race tricky. Maybe we won't be able to overtake because we are slow on the straights."