Lando Norris expressed his surprise at Ferrari’s deficit to McLaren in Australia, given how close to the pace they were throughout free practice.

Norris and McLaren team-mate Oscar Piastri locked out the front row before the Briton took victory at Albert Park, while Ferrari lined up P7 and P8 before finishing in the lower reaches of the points.

Lando Norris: ‘We expected Ferrari to be a good chunk quicker than they were’

Both McLaren drivers were able to find a significant gap to their rivals in qualifying at the weekend, but Norris revealed he had expected Ferrari to be much closer to, or even match McLaren on race pace, given the data they had from practice simulations.

It was Red Bull’s Max Verstappen that was able to run McLaren the closest in changing conditions at Albert Park, however, and Norris explained that all available evidence has pointed to Ferrari being nearer the pace than was indicated in the season opener at the weekend.

While explaining where McLaren were “very strong” in Australia, he admitted being surprised by Ferrari’s lack of pace – and said the Scuderia themselves will likely have been “a bit shocked” at their own speed.

“Definitely the gap we had in qualifying, I was a bit surprised by,” Norris said ahead of the Chinese Grand Prix.

“Our goal was to be pole and to be quickest and we expected to kind of be there, but we expected Ferrari to be a good chunk quicker than they were.

“I think they ended up, what, seven, eight tenths off. They’re not seven, eight tenths off by any means. There’s not been one session, FP1, FP2, FP3, that even looks that far off.

“All of their race runs were a lot closer to us than everyone else. In fact, I think the Ferraris race pace on the Friday was like even better than ours, almost. So we were a little bit surprised.

How has Lando Norris begun the F1 2025 season compared to Oscar Piastri?

👉 F1 2025: Head-to-head qualifying statistics between team-mates

👉 F1 2025: Head-to-head race statistics between team-mates

“I’m sure they seemed a bit shocked as well, as to why they were so far off. I don’t know why.

“It just shows how difficult it is. It’s so easy for it to be going well, and so easy for it to just kind of turn upside down and not.

“Then you saw how quick Max [Verstappen] was at the end, and even at the beginning of the race, like Max was just as quick as us.

“But definitely in that period where you have to understand the tyres and know how much to push, you want a well-balanced car, in those drying out conditions, so the tyres kind of die away evenly, rather than more front or rear limited. That’s when we seem very, very strong, in that middle period of the race.

“But there’s also a good amount that me and Oscar have learned from each other in knowing how we have to drive the tyres, so I think that also helps, having a good team-mate that we can learn from.

“You know, it’s also something that, again, not many other teams have, but two team-mates that can really rely on one another and learn things from, because we’ve both been at McLaren for a little time now, and we both learn a lot from each other.

“So there’s also a good amount of it being not just the car, but also two drivers working together well, rather than just one.”

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