McLaren's F1 test brake issues not an easy fix - Norris

The Briton was restricted to just 50 laps of running across the opening day at the Bahrain International Circuit as he grabbled with brake problems that compounded his morning programme and continued after the lunch break. 

Norris was seen struggling to slow down at Turn 1 and Turn 10 on multiple occasions as he regularly suffered lock-ups and ran wide. The issue impacted McLaren’s long run plans and Norris is concerned it may take time to solve. 

“We just had problems with the brakes today, simple as that,” Norris explained at the end of the opening day of running in Bahrain. 

“The exact problems I'm not too sure, but just temperatures and stuff. It didn't allow us to do long runs. Things we are trying to fix the next few days, it's not going to be an easy fix, so we'll see what we can do.”

Norris hopes McLaren will be able to conduct more long running over the course of the remaining two days of the test but warned it will require “a lot of work”. 

”We hope not, we hope to figure out things tonight, and into tomorrow and so on,” he said. 

“It wasn't obviously something we could just fix today, it's not something that easy to fix. We're going to make compromises and things here and there to allow us to do more running for sure. 

“The guys are already working on that. I'm not too sure just yet, I was just driving the car and getting to know everything else. But just a lot of work to do so we'll see.”

Norris subbed in for an unwell Daniel Ricciardo, who had originally been scheduled to drive on Thursday. 

Asked if his teammate will be back in the car on Friday, Norris replied: “He’s still not feeling well, but he's resting. He's sleeping and we'll see if he's OK tomorrow.”