Lando Norris believes that McLaren has made decent progress with its recent programme of upgrades introduced in Baku, and that it will be able to put some of that improvement on display in Miami this weekend.
"Today we’re definitely a little bit better than we were maybe expecting," he told Sky Sports F1 after ending Friday's free practice sessions in sixth place on the timesheets.
"The upgrades that we had in Baku have provided a little bit more help for us here, which is a good thing," he commented. "But it’s just a Friday, so we’ll take it one step at a time and not get ahead of ourselves.
"I'm pretty happy, I think we found a slightly better balance with the car," he said. "We made a couple of small improvements between FP1 and FP2, which was good. Hopefully we can try to go further in that direction for tomorrow.
"We’re struggling in a few areas of the track so we’ll focus on improving that, get a bit more confidence in the car and aim for Q3 in qualifying.”
Norris was one of the first drivers to switch to the soft compound for qualifying runs in FP2, and his initial lap time of of 1:28.741s was six tenths quicker than anyone had gone on the mediums up to that point.
Moreover it took a long time before anyone knocked him off the top spot when they subsequently followed him onto the red-walled compound.
"I was P1 for a long time so my hopes were high for a little bit!” he beamed. “I think it was a good day, a positive day. A clean amount of running.
"We had a good plan from the beginning and we stuck to it so I’m happy with that. We’re definitely a little bit better than we were maybe expecting."
However Norris had mixed feelings when asked what he thought about the track, which had been resurfaced before the event after drivers complained last year that it was breaking up in places and lacking grip overall.
"It’s better because it’s not coming up and breaking up,” Norris conceded. “But in terms of grip, it was still pretty low.
“It’s getting better," he acknowledged. "I think it’s probably just never been used before. It’s been a lot better since this morning, probably a good few seconds.
“This morning was pretty sketchy though," he added. "On the first few laps it was like, ‘Oh no! Seems a bit like last year’.
"It’s a much more usable surface, it just needs some running," he continued. "The only tough thing is if you go a little bit off line, you’re probably in a wall somewhere. It’ll make racing quite tough on Sunday.”
Oscar Piastri agreed with Norris that it was "a tricky track surface", but added: “In FP2 the track gripped up and got a lot faster, and we have some work to do to adapt to that.
“We were trying a few things throughout the session but we’re still working on it," noted the Australian after finishing 16th in FP2. “It’s not been a bad day, but we’ve got plenty to look over for tomorrow.”
Piastri added that despite the track limitations, he felt that Miami would prove to be a better place to get a proper feel for the new upgrade package that the team has just introduced for the MCL60.
“I think we got a reasonable read on it; it did more or less what we expected,” he said. “Here, we’ll get a better idea and also got a bit more time to try some stuff.”
Team principal Andrea Stella added: "We’ll study the data overnight and come back tomorrow, trying to maximise our performance for qualifying and the race.
“Today was a productive day, we worked through our programme of understanding the new surface of this track and the behaviour of the tyres, both over a single lap and longer runs.
"Overall we seem to be able to compete for Q3 and for points, but once again we can see the midfield is very compact."
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