Norris: I don’t think we expected a lot of the upgrade

Norris did not get to sample the new upgrade package until FP2 on Friday afternoon, as it was only bolted on Daniel Ricciardo's car for the FP1.

Norris and Ricciardo finished the first practice seventh and tenth respectively with each driver improving by one position in the afternoon session.

Despite both cars featuring in the top ten, Norris admitted the improvement wasn't drastic, and revealed that he had to change his driving a bit to adapt to the new car.

"It’s not as much as what I would dream of but yes, I don’t think we expected a lot of it," Norris spoke of the update to F1's official website.

"We expected a small step and it’s still too early to say," he added. "I’ve just driven it and things feel different – some things a little bit better and some things we have to optimise and figure out. But yes, reasonable.

"Daniel had it this morning for FP1, so he’s understood a little bit more," Norris continued. "For me, I’ve still got to figure out how to drive the car because it’s a little bit different in that regard.

"I guess I’m playing a little bit of catch-up and trying to understand that compared to Daniel, but at the same time it’s been good, we’ve been able to compare data easily today because we chose that strategy of me not having it, him having it, and therefore we can look at the data tonight and extract more performance for tomorrow," he explained.

Quizzed about the how different the car felt, Norris revealed: "Just the slight feeling you get behind the wheel, you know? You’re so sensitive, you get so used to things, as soon as something feels just a little bit off, you have to figure out why that’s happening, what it’s doing, what the reasoning is for it and how to overcome it and maximise it again.

"It’s nothing good or bad, it’s just the limitation of the car is in different places throughout the corner and therefore you’ve got to adapt yourself to that," the 22-year-old concluded.

Daniel Ricciardo passed his judgment on the new update package for his MCL36, saying: "[The parts] look different, don’t they?

"Yes, you feel it, but it’s also, we haven’t driven on this track yet as well with these cars so the reference [is] to another track, so I do feel some differences but it’s not like a back-to-back test if you will," he added.

"I think in the afternoon we made a bit of progress so that was better but I think there’s more to get out of it, so we’ll do some homework tonight – usual Friday night – but I think everything ran fairly smooth today so we got plenty of laps in and it wasn’t too hot in the car actually – it felt okay.

"On the long runs, I’m not really sure where we stand yet," the Australian admitted. "I haven’t had a good look at that.

"I think I’m more worried about getting everything sorted from a set-up point of view and trying to understand that better after having had a whole day of running," Ricciardo concluded.