Norris finished the second training session on the Hungaroring in ninth place, 1.3 seconds behind Valtteri Bottas’ best time of the day.
The McLaren driver was six tenths behind Alpine’s Esteban Ocon, who enjoyed an impressive session and finished the day fourth fastest.
With Alpine and AlphaTauri looking surprisingly strong in practice, Norris isn’t sure what the real pecking order is in midfield.
“No, Alpine was very fast today, AlphaTauri were very fast today,” said Norris. “Ferraris were maybe a bit slower than we expected – I thought they were very fast here – so I don’t know. Even we expected it to get a little better.
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“The conditions are very different from last year, it was much colder last year, the asphalt was a bit fresher and newer. It’s changing, it’s never the same, and we’re going to sit down tonight and try to understand why and try to make some improvements about it. “
Norris finished in the top five in nine of the first ten races in 2021 and is third in the drivers’ championship ahead of Bottas and Red Bulls Sergio Perez.
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He says getting through in Q3 is the priority as overtaking on the Hungaroring is difficult.
“I think it was one of our tougher FP2s,” explained Norris. “Usually we’re not great in FP2, but we never have that much struggle, the gap to Alpine was pretty big.
“So I think that getting into Q3 is the most important thing, especially since it is a track that is very much dominated by qualifying. Tomorrow is the big day, so let’s all lay our eggs in it now. “
With track temperatures above 60 degrees, the conditions were difficult for most of the teams because they suffered from overheating.
“Yeah, it just doesn’t feel good to drive,” added Norris. “When you want to put together a qualifying lap, you want to feel at the limit everywhere and now it feels so easy to push the limit when it makes sense, as a driver it just doesn’t feel very nice. Tomorrow we will try to make a few more improvements and see if we can make more lap time out of it. “
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