McLaren explain problem behind early Lando Norris retirement

Lando Norris has declared himself to be playing catch-up following what was "a tricky first day" on his return to action as F1 champion.

Norris was left languishing near the bottom of the timesheet at the end of the first practice session at Melbourne's Albert Park, completing just seven laps in his McLaren due to what the team has confirmed was a 'transmission control issue'.

The British driver had complained earlier in the session about problems with his MCL40 and had failed to set a competitive lap time before the team called a halt to his running with 20 minutes remaining.

Norris at least made steps in FP2 following a fix to cure the issue, accruing 29 laps, with his best a second behind pace-setting team-mate Oscar Piastri, who finished two-tenths of a second clear of Mercedes' Kimi Antonelli with a 1:19.729s.

Aside from Antonelli, in between the two McLaren drivers were George Russell in his Mercedes, Ferrari duo Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc, along with Red Bull's Max Verstappen.

“A tricky first day, but it’s good to be back in the car for the start of a new season," said Norris, who appreciates he is a step behind his F1 rivals.

"We didn’t get as much running done as we wanted to this morning, due to some reliability issues, so we’re a little bit behind in terms of running and learning.

"With these new regulations, time in the car is very important, so we’ve got a bit of work to do this evening to recover.

"We’ve got some good bits of data to go over from the second half of FP2, and there’s plenty we can learn from what our competitors have been doing.

"We’ll work hard tonight and try to close that gap before we get back in the car for FP3 tomorrow."

Despite Norris not enjoying the cleanest of practice runs, with Piastri out front, McLaren chief technical officer and chief designer Rob Marshall at least felt the day was "positive overall", despite "some trickier moments".

"In FP1, we investigated a problem on Lando’s car, which confirmed a transmission control issue which we resolved ahead of the next session," said Marshall.

"FP2 ran a little more smoothly, with the drivers finding more consistency and gaining more valuable data across varying runs, including qualifying simulations.

"We’re in a reasonable position regarding getting the car dialled in, but overnight we’ll review where we can keep making steps forward, focusing across all aspects of car setup, tyres and power unit management and optimisation.

"With limited practice time before qualifying, everyone is still refining their approach, and we saw improvements from FP1 to FP2 across the board.

"Going into qualifying tomorrow, we hope to be in the fight - precision matters more than ever, and it will be important to ensure we execute the preparation perfectly with the expected traffic."