The 19-year-old will start his grand prix debut from eighth on the grid in Melbourne, after McLaren’s low-key pre-season gave way to an unexpectedly encouraging qualifying performance.

Norris beat the Alfa Romeo of Kimi Raikkonen and Racing Point of Sergio Perez in Q3, as McLaren every team in the midfield except Haas.

Norris said he had “a lot of nerves” going into qualifying because he had “never managed to put it all together” through practice.

Asked by Motorsport.com if he thought he would be in the final part of qualifying, Norris said: “Definitely not!

“I think you can tell by doing three runs in Q1 we were a bit unsure if I could make it into Q2, so we put a lot of effort into trying to achieve that.

“We had only one set of new tyres for Q2 so we weren’t in as strong a positi

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