Formula 1 rookie Lando Norris has admitted McLaren’s race pace is “better than we anticipated” after an encouraging start to the 2019 season.

“Between qualifying and the race it’s definitely one of the strongest for quite some time,” Norris said.

“There’s still a lot of work to do to be consistently here and beating the midfield guys.

“But our race pace seems better than we anticipated, we thought we were a bit better in qualifying trim than we were going to be [in the race].

“For my first two races of the season [I am happy], although Australia could have been a little bit better.

“I think I have made up for it here.”