Lando Norris says Ferrari’s impressive pace in Friday’s F1 practice sessions for🏅 the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix is "not a shock".

Norris finished fourth at the season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix, confirming McLaren as F1’s third-fastest team beh🍃ind Red Bull and Mercedes.

Ferrari appears to have a significant advantage at Imola as both Charles Lec🙈lerc and Carlos Sainz ♉ended both practice sessions inside the top six.

Conversely, McLaren struggled for pace, with Norris endin൲g FP2 only eighth fastಞest overall.

Assessing Ferrari’s impressive turn of pace at Imola, Norris says it’s not unexpected giv♉en how wel♕l the SF21 performed through the corners in Bahrain.

"In Bahra🎀in, they were definitely quicker than us in the majority of corners - not all of them - but here they look very quick," Norris told Sky Sports after FP2. "I don't think it's something we didn't expect. Maybe they're a bit quicker than we expected, but we knew some races they'd 🐼be ahead and some races we'd be ahead.

"It's Ferrari, if there's one team at the moment that's going to make a big improvement somewhere it's them. So it's not a surprise. Maybe that little bit faster than we anticipated, buꦺt not a shock."

McLaren struggౠled for pace at Imola last ♑year, trailing Renault, AlphaTauri and Racing Point on pure performance.

Norris admits McLaren exp🐼ected to be less competitive than it was in Bahrain𓄧.

"It's not settled down t❀o this track as easily as it did to Bahrain," Norris added. "It's a little bit harder, but it's kind of what we expected from what we knew from last year. We struggled a little bit more here comparing to Bahrain too, but just some tracks the car goes better on.

"This is one of the ones we knew was going to be a bit tougher for us. But we💦 made some good improvements from FP1 to FP2 so hopefully into tomo🌊rrow we can make another little step."