New McLaren feels similar to last year's, says Norris

McLaren's 2025 Formula One car feels like last year's championship winner and pre-season testing so far has been more about ticking boxes than absolute performance, Lando Norris said on Thursday.

The Briton was fastest on Wednesday, the first of three days of testing at Bahrain's Sakhir circuit before the season starts in Australia on March 16, and returned to the car on Thursday afternoon.

"It feels similar, which is a good start. It's where we wanted to start, at least," Norris told reporters.

"Nothing’s been majorly addressed, let's say... we’ve just tried to make the car quick all around and add more load, a simple way of looking at it honestly.

"We still want to try and focus on some areas more than others. We’ve struggled a bit more with the rear than we would have liked over yesterday and today. But it’s still early days," he added.

"We're not looking at performance or absolute, outright performance. If we went into qualifying now I'm sure we would change some things."

Norris was runner-up to Red Bull's four times world champion Max Verstappen last year but has already been established as a bookmakers' favourite before Melbourne.

He said the true pace of the car was difficult to tell, with rivals likely running different fuel loads and testing different things.

"The more you can improve the rear, the more everything just gets better," he explained. "But the rest of it feels correct, and it feels like it’s in the same ballpark, and that’s what we want.

"I don’t think we’re expecting to be a big step ahead of anyone... but if we’re just there fighting from the beginning, that’s our target.

"If we can just be there fighting from the off then we'll be happy."