Lando Norris says he is st🤪ruggling wiജth confidence in his McLaren Formula 1 car despite ending the opening day of competitive action in 2021 second in the timesheets.

While Max Verstappen dominated Friday practice in Bahrain, Norris also i🌳mpressed by following up his P3 in FP1 with P2 in the more representative evening session.

Despite his seemingly strong pace, the Briton was left unhappy with the handling and bal🐈ance of his MCL35M car and stressed McLaren has plenty of work to do overnight.

“I mean we look quick today but I think it is fairlꩲy obviously what’s going to happen tomorrow,” Norris said.

“It’s going to be kind of the usual front four cars ahead of us, behind there it seems very close even if today𒉰 we’re a little bit ahead. I think it’s because we just showed a bit more, and then we’ll go in tomorrow and there’ll be a little bit more where should be kind of thing.

“I feel good in the car, in some areas, in some areas it does💛n’t feel that good and we need to improve and if we can improve it tomorrow I’ll be happier, and that’s our ဣjob for tonight.”

Norris said he is wary of reading too much into the times on Friday as he suspects the orde♎r could end up looking very different come qualifying on Saturday.

“You never know, we could be a surprise, but the car didn’t feel that gooಞd today so kind of I guess a bit promising that if we can improve those things into tomorrow then we can be even better,” he explained🗹.

“Whether we can improve on them is the question because they’re similar things to what we’ve been working on all season and we’ll see if w♛e can come up with anyt🎃hing tomorrow.

“Quietly confident I guess but yea꧒h, although we looked good today I don’t want to get too confident as I don’t think that’s where we’re going to be tomorrow.”

Asked which area needs the most attention heading into qual𝔉ifying day, Norris replied: “The corners, most corners, not good enough.

“It’s not like one particular place, there’s a few 🃏different areas, I’m not going to say of cour⛦se, but in different scenarios it feels good and in other areas it feels slightly worse.

"A 💝bit of it depends on the wind and weather and temperatu♒re, low fuel, high fuel, so different areas we’ve got to work on and that’s what we’ll do tonight.

“I don’t have t💮he confidence that I want, especially on medium and high speed corners, Turn 6-7,” he added.

“I made a mista🧸ke on the first lap and had to abort as I completely lost the rear. My confidence in the car isn’t where I want it to be, isn’t where we had it last year, but th🌳ere’s also improvements in other places compared to last year. So there’s areas to work on and that’s our job.”