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

The 20-year-old enjoyed a strong debut F1 campai𓆉gn 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 enough uponꦬ his F1 graduation after just a year in Formulꦉa 2 but 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 International, Norris said: “I want to say I’m more c꧂onfident in my own driving, because 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 goꦓod job, w💦orking 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 result🔯s that I’ve seen, it’s looking positive. It’s going in the right direction, but 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 confident, but I can’t say ꦫthat we’re going to be on the podium or wherever.

“I want to say we’re 📖top 10, for sure, but anything more than that, I can’t really say.🏅”

Despite McLaren’s impressiv♛e rate of p🤪rogress 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 job ♏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 season. I would love to, but I don’t ꧒want to overhype anything. I think we’ve got to be realistic.

“We’ve got to be saying ꦉwe want to take a step forward. I think we can be confident in saying that, but how big 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 right direction. But it’s win🌞ter, no-one knows.

“In 2018, we were going into 2019 and we knew the car was going to be better. We knew the car was looking good in the wind tunnel and so 𒊎on.

“But then when we went to Barcelona, it was better than what we thought as a 🗹team. So I’m hoping it’s going to be li🧔ke that this season.

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