McLaren’s Lando Norris says he is “a lot more confident” in his driving abilities head꧑ing into 2020 compared ไto his rookie Formula 1 season.

The 20-year-old e🌠njoyed a strong debut F1 campaign and helped McLaren secure fourth spot in the constructors’ championship, while he finished 11th in the drivers’ standings after scoring 49 points. Norris managed 47 fewer points than teammate Carlos Sainz but out-qualified the Spaniard 11-10 across 21 rounds.

Norris conceded he had initial doubts about whether he would be good enoughᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚ upon his F1 graduation after just a year in Formula 2 b✱ut the Briton insisted he is much more confident about his abilities heading into his sophomore season.

Speaking during a fan Q&A session at Autosport Internati🎐onal, Norris said: “I want to say I’m more confident in my own driving, bec๊ause it’s my second year in Formula 1, so I feel now a lot more confident.

“But also the team I think have done a very good job, working on particularly the areas that we were not good in last year, that we were quite weak in♕, which is almost every corner.

“It’s trying to work on those areas, and from the results that I’ve seen, it’s looking positཧive. It’s going in the right direction, bu😼t we still need more to be really competitive.

“Compared to what I was last year, if you asked me that question, I can definitely say now that I am much more conꦫfident, but I can’t say that we’re going to be on the podium or wherever.

“I want to say we’re top 10, for sure, but anything more than th💦at, I can’t really say.”

Despite McLaren’s impressive r𒆙ate of progress throughout 2019, Norris 🅰has stressed he does not want to “overhype anything”.

“I’m confident, and I want to say the guys have done such a good ꦦjob over the winter to improve the car as much as possible,” Norris explained.

“I’m not going to say we’re going to be winning races this seaso🍸n. I would love to, but I don’t want to overhype anything. I think we’ve got to be realistic.

“We’ve got to be saying we want to take a step forward. I think we can be confident in saying that, but how ꦬbig of a step is unknown comparing to the other teams.

“We’ll be trying as hard as we can to keep moving forward, keep taking these 🐼steps in the rig🍸ht direction. But it’s winter, no-one knows.

“In 2018, we were going into 2019 and we knew the car wa♋s going to be better. We knew the car was looking good in the wind tunnel a🉐nd so on.

“But then when we went to Barcelona, it was better than what we thoꦇught as a team. So I’m hoping it’s going to be like tha♐t this season.

“The car’s looking a bit better. So hopefully when we go 🐼to Barcelona and we do our first test, it’s just going to be amazing.”