Lando Norris insists that the last minute change to the wing deflection tests will not compromise McLaren.

Though it insists that all the cars were legal, with just days before the second round of the season the FIA revealed stricter tests following information that came to light over the Melbourne weekend.

Having analysed practice session footage from the rear wing deformations combined to the static deflections measured inside the governing body's garage in Melbourne, the FIA concluded that sufficient grounds exist for a tougher test to be introduced from this weekend on the upper rear wing.

However, speaking in Shanghai, the championship leader, insisted that his team, which has been at the centre of allegations since last summer, was unaffected by the new rule.

"We don't have to change anything," he told reporters. "Ours was fine.

"In fact, ours was too good," he added, smiling, "and we are not pushing the limits enough.

"If this new ruling was in place last weekend, we'd also be fine," he continued. "So it's not directed at us. It's directed at other teams, which probably means we need to push it even more."

The youngster was also keen to play down talk that the title is already his.

"It makes no difference to me at the minute," he said. "I'm not thinking about it.

"I had one good weekend. People need to calm down a little bit. I probably won't even think of the championship until at least halfway through the year."

We're pretty sure that his teammate might have something to say about that. Indeed, talking of his teammate, Norris was asked about the call for Oscar Piastri to hold station at one point in the race, despite the team's insistence that its drivers were free to race, a claim made by Zak Brown just moments before the start.

"I didn't really know about it because they said it to Oscar, not to me," said Norris. "It was literally just for two or three laps as we went through the backmarkers," he added. "It was risky conditions, and we'd look like complete idiots if we attempted to race and both ended up off the track - or worse, out of the race - when we had a great result in hand.

"It was just for a couple of laps that they asked us to hold position, and then he was free to race again. We were free to race all the way up until that point, and then there was just a holding period for a few laps. After that, it was back to normal.

"That's all I really knew about it," he insisted. "I'm sure we'll talk about it more - we even had a little chat about it this morning. But yeah, from the team's perspective, it wasn't about me or Oscar, it was about McLaren - we're first and second, let's not do anything silly when we don't need to.

"There's still a lot of opportunity left for Oscar to race me, and it would have been stupid to try and force a situation when we're behind backmarkers, blue flags. If you go offline at that part of the race, you're in the wall. At that stage of the race, I was still trying to think I need get these tyres to last until Lap 54 or whatever. I think Oscar was just pushing a bit more and trying to get past me. But yeah, it was all comfortable from my side."