People are "short-sighted" claims Lando Norris as he insists that there is still no true idea of the pecking order.

While it looks certain that Stake and Aston Martin are in for another tough season, many are of the opinion that McLaren will pick up where it left off in Abu Dhabi.

A strong pre-season test, combined with extended contracts for all the team's major players, suggests that the Woking outfit is back and ready to begin adding to its already impressive tally of titles.

However, speaking to reporters in Melbourne, Lando Norris was keen to play down suggestions that he and his team are hot favourites heading into the weekend.

"I'm quite surprised so many people are short-sighted, especially people you wouldn't expect to be," he said, "making so many conclusions before we've even started the season.

"Everyone wants to play that game of looking like the underdog and playing it down," he continued. "We just focus on ourselves.

"It's nice that so many people are thinking about us and talking about us, great publicity for us so I thank all of them," he added. "But it makes no difference.

"If I go out this weekend and do a bad job, who cares what people have said in the past? I don't believe it, I feel like we're in a similar playing field to the top other three teams. I still think it's a top four."

Asked about pre-season testing, which was relatively dismal for Red Bull, he said: "There are many things that other people didn't see where other people looked extremely strong, including Red Bull, including Mercedes, including Ferrari.

"I know how much fuel and stuff Ferrari had for a lot of the testing," he continued, "you'd be surprised at how quick they're going to be this weekend.

"People can talk all they want. I think for us, we've kept to ourselves... we've kept focused.

"We want to be quick, we expect to be up there fighting, but I definitely don't think by the margin that everyone is saying."

As for his own chances...

"I don't think I'm just going to be racing against Max this year," hew admitted. "I think it's going to be Charles and Lewis, it's going to be Oscar, it's going to be both Red Bull drivers and Mercedes drivers too, you know?

"I look forward to all of the battles," he smiled. "And of course the more wars that can be on track between others, the better for us, but, I don't expect that to happen too much, you know?"

Referring to the 2024 title fight, the Briton has previously admitted that he wasn't ready, while adding that Max Verstappen's 'tactics' hardly helped.

"I think I learned two big things," he said. "One was, I clearly wasn't quite ready to deliver on everything that they needed me to deliver on from a racing point of view. And that's just because racing against Max is a unique situation and you don't get to experience it in any other way of life until you really get to that point. And I think had it been a battle against different drivers, it probably wouldn't have been as hard.

"I think that's probably a fair assessment because I do think Max will be the hardest guy to race against. He's always going to be the one who's going to be most willing to push the limits and push the boundaries like he did. So I learned that aspect of Max and I also learned where I stood in that situation, which was not at the right level.

"I learned from those things. And I think already in the last couple of races I improved on a lot of those situations. But every situation is different in Formula 1, so, you know, even if some of them happen again, it's not always a guarantee I'll make the right decision, and Max will make the right decision, or any other driver will make the right decision.

"It's a tough one because you don't make those decisions now, you have to make them on track, half a second before it happens. You don't have a lot of time to think about the whole situation, so I'm just excited to have another crack at it and see what I can do, and go up against any driver."