Lando Norris says that McLaren is confident that the upgrade package that the team has brought to Formula 1's Miami Grand Prix will help it move forward.

The Miami package is the first of two steps which along with a second in Montreal will see McLaren have what team principal Andrea Strella flagged recently as a “completely new car.”

Norris noted that the team has had a good recent record of bringing parts to the track, but he acknowledged that it won’t be easy to optimise them on a sprint weekend.

“We certainly want to be hopeful, and I think we're certainly confident that it can help us move forward,” he said when asked by Crash.net about the updates. “I think just because we say it's a new car doesn't mean it's one second!

“We do have a good history of bringing parts and them working efficiently and working as they should. So we want to believe in what we're bringing this weekend. It's also a sprint, so it's not like we're going to be able to maximise everything perfectly, but we'll give it a good shot.”

Norris said that the spring break allowed the team to take stock and search for performance.

“It was also a good opportunity for the whole team to review everything, to kind of reset, and try and kick off the season once again from this point onwards.

“[Miami has] been a good track for us in the past. So we hope some things align and come together, but we also don't know what our competitors are going to do. We know that a lot of them has tested their new parts already. We would have loved to have tested all our new parts already.

“So we're a little bit on the back foot from that side of things, sadly, but otherwise, I think we're confident we can do a good job, and we're looking forward to trying to move forward this weekend.”

Meanwhile Oscar Piastri said that the team is on a “good trajectory” while admitting that there is more work to do to catch Mercedes.

“I think hopefully we’ll be faster,” said the Aussie. “Obviously, that’s the plan. We’ll have to wait and see where exactly we come out. I think it’s, again, a step in the right direction for us.

“It’s not going to be enough to challenge Mercedes this weekend, I don’t think, but it’s definitely in the right direction.

“Obviously, we’re expecting a lot of other teams to bring upgrades as well, so hopefully ours are better than theirs. That’s the plan. But I think the motivation and the confidence in the team at the moment is high. I think we’re on a good trajectory again.

“And I think Japan was nice to go into the break with a bit of confidence in showing our potential and hopefully we’ve just added to that now. So hopefully it’s a good step forward."