McLaren rookie Lando Norris has singled out his heightened self-confidence as the key takeaway from his first four races in Formula 1.
As the 2018 Formula 2 champion, Norris was promoted to a race seat at McLaren at just 19-years-old. While well prepared for the endeavor, the young Brit felt understandably anxious and uptight on his debut in Melbourne.
However, a sixth-place finish at the following race in Bahrain went a long way towards alleviating his uneasiness and boosting his confidence.
Asked recently to specify his biggest takeaway since he graduated to the big time, Norris replied:
"Probably confidence in myself. That’s the thing I probably struggled with the most going to Australia," said the McLaren charger.
"It was much better going to Bahrain, [I was] much more relaxed and enjoying it a lot more.
"I enjoyed Australia but I was so tense, thinking about so many things, I couldn’t enjoy it as much as I wanted to.
"Didn’t make it as fun as Bahrain or China. I think confidence in knowing I can do a good enough job."
Norris conceded that scoring a good result in only his second race was an unexpected "bonus".
"It’s always a bonus to do it [so early in the season]," he added.
"It’s not like I had to do it or something but if there is an opportunity to do it I need to make the most of it and make sure I am there to maximise that opportunity, which is what I did.
"I couldn’t have done much better than sixth, maybe if I didn’t drop back so much in the beginning and if I was a bit higher up I could have been ahead of Vettel had he still had the same incident at the end.
"But apart from that, it’s good that I’ve done well for people on the outside but also for my own confidence from knowing I can do the job, which is mainly from the job I did in Bahrain.
"It’s important but it wasn’t the end of the world if it didn’t happen."
While he failed to see the checkered in Shanghai, where he retired in the closing stages of the race following an undertray issue on his McLaren, Norris added to his points tally in Azerbaijan.
And he's now looking to tag on more points as F1 returns to Europe and to circuits he's familiar with.
"Racing at tracks I know helps me hit the ground running when preparing for the weekend," he said ahead of this weekend's Spanish Grand Prix in Barcelona.
"It only feels like yesterday that we were in Spain for pre-season testing.
"Heading back to where we first tested the car should give us a good indication of the car’s performance and the areas we need to improve."
Gallery: The beautiful wives and girlfriends of F1 drivers
Keep up to date with all the F1 news via Facebook and Twitter
