Lando Norris reveals 'pressure on' as 'surreal' McLaren situation hits home on F1 return

Lando Norris was effectively left pinching himself in witnessing the "crazy" and "surreal" situation of seeing the No.1 on his car as he returned to F1 as the sport's champion.

Just over seven weeks after clinching his maiden title by just two points over Red Bull's four-time champion Max Verstappen, Norris drove out of the McLaren garage at Barcelona's Circuit de Catalunya sporting the highly prized number.

It was a case of better late than never due to McLaren's delays in the build of the MCL40, which Norris has claimed was only finally put together on Wednesday morning before it made its maiden track appearance.

Norris went on to complete a solid 76 laps, with his best a 1:18.307s on new softs, finishing just under a second behind the leading time of the week so far from Mercedes' Kimi Antonelli, albeit with times at this stage relatively meaningless.

"It was nice to be back," said Norris. "Nice to see a number one on my car. Pretty cool, pretty surreal still, so good feelings."

Addressing the honour of the No.1, Norris added: "I saw it earlier on the timing screen, and I still find it just unbelievable. It's still a crazy thing to see, especially when you see it now. Now is the first time I get to see it on my suit, on the car, on timing screens, all of these things, and it looks good.

"Still a surreal feeling, the whole situation of being champion. But it doesn't change anything, apart from the fact that I'm at the top of the timing screens before we've even gone out because I'm the lowest number.

"Now, pressure is on, but at the same time, it's just cool. It's great for the mechanics, for all of them to have that feeling and that honour, but it doesn't change anything.

"Otherwise, it's still a lot of hard work that we have to put into everything, and many laps you've got to complete, but it's nice to know that I've got that number on."

Norris 'going through the manual'

McLaren had hoped to initially run on Monday but delayed its debut due to the car build, with Tuesday's wet weather affording them an additional day's grace, albeit boxing the team in to conducting all of its running in the final three days.

As far as Norris was concerned, he and McLaren ultimately ticked all the boxes available to them on the opening day.

"Our first day on track, first time that everyone gets to see the car in one piece, it's literally not been built until this morning," he said. "It's an incredible thing.

"So it's nice to see it all come together, to see all the hard work that everyone does to make that car, and then I get to go and have some fun and drive it, which turned out to be a decent day.

"Today was really a first understanding of the whole car, understanding how it works, going through the manual of everything.

"It was a productive day, but it's one that was about figuring stuff out, making sure things are working as they should, understanding things, getting our first picture and all of it.

"So, a good day for me, just to be back driving again, understanding some of the differences, but a good one for the engineers, the mechanics, the whole team, to get the first look at the regulations of this year."