Lando Norris reacts to finishing bottom of practice timesheet in Bahrain

The practice timesheet at the F1 Bahrain Grand Prix was notable because Lewis Hamilton was at the top, but also because Lando Norris was at the bottom.

The McLaren driver finished 20th in the second practice session on Thursday but emerged unflustered.

Norris made an error on the last sector while using soft tyres, forcing him to abort his lap, McLaren CEO Zak Brown told Sky Sports.

Norris reacted: “It’s been a reasonable day. I’m happy with how Thursday went overall.

“We made some progress with the car, there are still plenty of things to improve on, but we improved the balance and I got more comfortable, which is a good thing.

“I didn’t do a great job in putting a lap together, so it wasn’t a very representative day on the timesheets, but overall, a good first day and a good start to the weekend.”

Andrea Stella, McLaren Team Principal, added: "Overall, a productive first day of practice. We had no major issues and we got through our test programme.

“Even though we’ve had three days of testing, there is always a lot to finalise when it comes to the race weekend, and today we worked on setup.

“It was also important to develop our understanding of the tyres in conditions that were colder in comparison to the test.

“Oscar had a good session both on new tyres and long runs, while Lando couldn’t complete his single timed lap on the Soft, which meant his position in the classification was not very meaningful.

“But we’re happy with the information we’ve acquired, and we seem to be in a decent position to score points.

“We’ll try to maximise our package tomorrow and put ourselves in the best position for the rest of the weekend.”

Oscar Piastri finished in P5 in the session topped both both Mercedes drivers, to give a stronger hint about what McLaren might be capable of from Friday onwards.

“It was a good session,” Piastri reacted.

“I felt like we were pretty competitive in both low and high fuel running. It’ll be interesting to see what we’re like tomorrow, but I think it was a pretty solid day overall.

“I was happy with my driving, and we got some good information out of the session.

“It will be interesting to see what the grid is like when all the sandbags are gone, but I think we’re about where we expected to be and we’re in a good place going into tomorrow.”

Thursday practice was full of intriguing results, not least Norris sitting bottom of the entire timesheet.

The pace of the two Mercedes was eye-opening, while Red Bull’s Max Verstappen languishing in sixth was even more unexpected.

Friday’s qualifying should offer a greater clue about what the 2024 F1 cars are truly capable of.