Lando Norris acknowledges that McLaren start the Formula 1 season as favourites but says the view among his rivals is "short-sighted".

Mercedes driver George Russell and world champion Max Verstappen both believe McLaren start the year with a pace advantage based on the evidence of pre-season testing.

Asked if he thought that McLaren were favourites going into the Australian Grand Prix this weekend, Norris said: "I feel like we are now. I know there's a lot of expectation and it's what everyone says.

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

"Everyone just wants to play that game of looking like the underdog and playing it down."

McLaren won the constructors' championship in 2024, their first team title in 26 years, as Norris finished second behind Verstappen in the drivers' standings.

Norris said that McLaren's status as favourites was the consequence of one race-distance run he did on the second day of testing last month but insisted that the top four teams would be closely matched, as they were last year.

"I feel like we're in a similar playing field to the top other three teams," Norris said in Melbourne on Thursday. "I still think it's us top four but there are many things that other people didn't see (in testing) where other people have been extremely strong, including Red Bull, including Mercedes, including Ferrari.

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

"People can talk what they want. We've kept to ourselves, we've kept focused and we want to be quick. We expect to be up there fighting but I don't think you can think by the margin that everyone's saying."

Norris flirted with a title battle with Verstappen last season but ultimately fell short. The advantage the Red Bull driver built up in a dominant first five races was too big to close.

The 25-year-old Briton said: "I learned a lot of things last year. I clearly wasn't quite ready to deliver on everything that we needed to deliver on from a racing point of view.

"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.

"Had it been a battle against different drivers, I don't know if it would have been the same. It definitely probably wouldn't have been as hard.

"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 learned where I stood in that situation, which was not at the right level. And I learned from those things. And I think already into the last couple of races, I improved on a lot of those situations."

Norris said he believed he was in a better position this year to fight strongly all season.

"I'm just excited to have another crack at it and see what I can do and go up against any driver," he said.

"I don't think I'm just going to be racing against Max this year. I think it's going to be Charles [Leclerc], Lewis [Hamilton]. It's going to be Oscar [Piastri, Norris' McLaren team-mate].

"It's going to be the Red Bull drivers and the Mercedes drivers too. So, I'm looking forward to all of the battles. And of course, the more about the others, the more wars there can be on track between others, the better for us."

Verstappen, who is aiming to win a fifth consecutive drivers' title, said he was concerned by the pace McLaren had shown in testing.

"I know we are not the quickest at the moment," the Dutchman, 27, said. "But it is a very long season, a lot of things can change quite quickly.

"We are pretty happy with how our test went. It will be an interesting weekend for sure, we are expecting to be up at the front, whether that is right at the pointy end we will see."